remarked to her "date" that a certain girl across the room was fascinating to look at.

"That sounds queer, coming from another girl," the boy had remarked. "Why?" she asked. "Can't one girl admire another girl's looks?"

"I guess so," the boy admitted. "But most girls are catty about other girls, especially good-looking ones."

"Well, I think that's silly," she replied, heatedly. "I appreciate beauty in anyone."

And later, thinking about it, she realized that she would like to have come closer to that girl, to touch her . . . She felt uneasy about such a feeling then, and wondered about herself.

HE had always read a great deal. She had a young uncle who was a medical student, and when she could steal unnoticed to his room in her grandmother's house, she read avidly his copy of "Millie" and "Dr. Fu Manchu" along with whatever she could comprehend in his medical books. It was here she found, one day, when she was sixteen, a copy of "The Well of Loneliness." She read a few chapters and couldn't bear to leave it when the time came for her to go home. She wasn't sure of what it was all about, but a tremendous excitement possessed her as she read, and she took the book with her.

The story of Stephen filled her with a great sadness, but it didn't help her to understand about herself. She wasn't like Stephen at all. She wasn't masculine. She didn't find boys repulsive. She felt sure she would someday marry and have children. It was just that there was something within her that allowed her to respond to certain people . . . and it didn't seem to matter about their sex.

It was because of Stephen and The Well of Loneliness that she was attracted to "the crowd" when she first saw them at Starfield High. She met Bev first, and through her, the others. And it was nothing but heartbreak for her, all the way through. In her odd, misdirected little mind, they were Stephens, every one of them. And she wanted to love them, separately or collectively. She wanted to make up to them for all of the Angelas, all of the Marys who had taken their love and betrayed it. Only, they weren't Stephens, after all . . . and they didn't care for her compassion. Her final gesture was the cropping of her hair and the adoption of boyish clothes. If she couldn't be an Angela or a Mary, then she would be a Stephen. But Bev's words put a sharp halt to that.

Her lips twisted into a wry smile, thinking of it. What a poor little clown she had been! Because she knew now that haircuts and clothes had nothing to do with it.

OU are so lovely, so lovely!" Lisa whispered. They had paused in the shadows of the Greek pavilion, and Lisa had just kissed her for the first time. Ruth leaned against a column for support, dizzy and weak from overmuch joy. They had been wandering through the park for an hour since the final curtain of the play held in the small open arena. Lisa had called Ruth the morning after they met.

"Would you be willing to deceive Bev a bit and come to a play with me tomorrow night?" she had asked. It was to be Shaw's Candida, one of Ruth's

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