I like to look at birds, said Gilbert Finch.

Nathaniel Weeks tried to make a pun about his name which didn’t come off, but all three laughed politely.

Lilian noticed that Gilbert Finch’s full upper lip looked as if someone had punched him, or as if he were holding back tears. One ear angled out from his head, pointing slightly, elfin. His eyes were pale with dark lids below as well as above, giving him the air of having felt sorrows. Lilian remembered hearing his mother had died when he was eleven or twelve.

As he ran to his train, he took a course off the paths, moving with an athlete’s grace. It occurred to Lilian how whenever she saw Gilbert Finch he was alone.

Imagine looking at birds in the middle of winter, Nathaniel Weeks snorted. He had on polished shoes and a pressed scarf. Beneath his hat, his hair was slicked back with a center part like the other fellows’.

I think it’s a splendid idea, Lilian said.

In the following months Lilian accepted invitations she would once have found excuses for, hoping in a dim way for a glimpse of Gilbert Finch. She was not more interested in him than in any other boy, but there was something about his quiet reserved way, and he had asked about her that time. She just wondered what he was like. But Gilbert Finch did not go out so much. She planned things with Marian and Dickie Wiggin, hoping they would ask Gilbert Finch along. Marian, who was forever proposing different fellows for Lilian, took no hint when it came to Gilbert Finch. Gilbert’s a little lost, was all Marian said.

Downtown one day on her way to buy ribbon, Lilian ran into him, Gilbert Finch, his hair mussed, carrying a crumpled newspaper. She felt she could have talked to him for a long time, and yet was unable to come up with the first word to get started. Out of nowhere Freddie Vernon appeared like a steam engine, exclaiming that Dolly was just around the corner, and if Lilian hurried she could catch her on Exeter Street, then he turned to Gilbert — he was damned interested in the work Finch was doing, why didn’t they have lunch sometime? — leaving Lilian with nothing to do but say good-bye and be on her way.