Although it was very evident Kitty had been to some pains to see me, I found her very silent and preoccupied. She had said not much more than a silly word or two about the weather, when we reached the Lee place, where she said she must leave me, as she had promised to stop for Sally and Kate. As she put her hand on the latch of the gate she gave me the first hint of what was burdening her mind by asking, "Are the boys all feeling well?"
I said, "Yes, as far as I know," and then to try her, "though Black looks a bit queer, for some unaccountable reason."
"That's too bad," answered Kitty, with considerable affectation of sorrow, as she swung the gate open; but I noticed a little widening of the mouth, and a tell-tale dimple in her cheek almost betrayed her. Not once did she raise her eyes to mine either, something very unusual with her, for she had the frankest glance possible.
I watched her as she mounted the steps and rang the bell, and then walked on beneath the tall elms, philosophizing over that most interesting subject, "a woman and her ways," something the masculine mind cannot understand, but likes to struggle with.
The track was in the centre of the "campus," an enclosure of several acres of soft green turf, fringed and fenced by its row of tall trees. Around the track the spectators were gathering, and the grand stand was beginning to fill. All the officials and most of the contestants were already inside the ropes, the former bustling around with their bright-colored badges flapping, and extremely busy doing nothing; the latter, in their spotless trunks and jerseys, with bare brown legs and arms, looking "sweet enough to kiss," so I heard a pretty little matron say on one of the lower seats. Indeed, I know few finer sights than a young fellow, clean-limbed and lithe, trained to perfection, with eyes bright, and face darkened by the sun, waiting in his running-togs, with a background of green grass, and overhead the cloudless sky.
As soon as I got among them, the boys flocked around me, and after a hearty word or two I sent the team off by the catcher's fence, a little beyond, for there were no dressing-rooms, and I wanted to know where to find them. Jack was looking "finer than silk," and Black not half bad, although a trifle dark under the eyes. I was not at all sure that even Kitty's dose was enough to stop him.
