man whom he had known as a red-haired, freckled bean-pole of a boy, the friend who was lying under that little wooden cross on the French hillside. . . . He came out of his revery with a startwhat was she asking him? He must have lost the first part of the sentence, for this was an apologetic clause:

"-and I know men hate to have women bother them about business, and I've bothered you enough, I guess, with all this worry about Dorothy. I oughtn't to say another word, but you were such a good friend of George's that I kinder feel I can ask your advice, and goodness knows I ought to have somebody to consult." And as Matherson turned to her with an eager, "why, I'd do anything I could for you, Mrs. Hunt-what is it?" she plunged into her subject at last: "Listen, Mr. Matherson, is it all right to borrow money from those firms that advertise? Because I don't believe I ought to ask the bank for another loan."

The one thought that occupied Matherson's mind for the next few days, sleeping or waking, was, how long before Adele would bring up the subject of the thousand dollars they had put aside to invest? As the week wore on, and she said nothing about it, he grew more and more to dread the question, though he had his answer all ready, and he fully intended there should be no argument. Sunday came round again, another day of storm, just as Mrs. Hunt had predicted. As he stood looking out of the sitting-room window at the cold, persistent downpour, he found himself wondering what they were doing with themselves at the lonely little ranch, what kind of amusement the dreary day could hold out to the wistful, delicate little girl who couldn't go out in the rain. Buster, in the new slicker and sou'-wester that had been purchased for him the day before, by way of celebrating the fact that the week of storms had proved this winter was no dreaded "dry season," came bounding into the room at this moment, to announce gleefully that mother had said he could go to Sunday-school all by himself. Naw, he wouldn't get wetthis ole rain wasn't anything when a feller had a slicker and a rubber hat just like the postman! Matherson watched the sturdy little figure splash down the

wet path, and again his thoughts went back to delicate little Dorothy, Skinny's baby girl- She had never been as cute a kid as Sister, of course, but Skinny had been just crazy about her. What was it he used to call her, after he had bought the little ranch and Mrs. Hunt had turned her out with her father in blue overalls that made her look like Skinny as a kid? "Farmerette"-no, "rancherette," that was it! Skinny had been dippy about that little ranch-he used to talk about it over there in France, and kick himself for not knowing French so that he could tell old Père Maurel that the California way of farming had theirs all beaten to a frazzle. And suddenly Matherson found himself saying aloud, and with an earnestness that shook him: "I'm glad I did it, darned glad!" Then he stopped short with a guilty glance toward the diningroom where Adele was watering the Boston fern in the window-had she heard him? It was reprieve to have her call out: "Speaking to me, Ed? I didn't get itwait till I come in." But he knew instinctively that, whether she had heard him or not, she was going to ask the question that day. When she joined him presently, it was with no surprise that he heard her saying briskly: "Listen, Ed, let's talk business this rainy morning. Have you thought how we'd better invest that thousand dollars?"

There was a light in the sitting-room as Matherson clicked the gate behind him while the town clock boomed six deliberate times, and he wondered why Adele had lit up so early. As a rule, the front part of the bungalow was shrouded in darkness on winter evenings until after supper was over and the dishes put away. Adele must have a caller-some one who didn't have the sense to know she ought to go home and let the lady of the house get at her cooking. He stole round the corner of the porch with a twofold purpose in his mind: first, to avoid the caller, and second, to let himself in by the kitchen door, to start the kettle and do other supper chores. But he had not reckoned on Buster's coaster, right in the middle of the path. As he picked himself up and brushed the dirt from his knees, the front door opened, and Adele stood silhouetted against the bright elec

tric light. "That you, Ed? I've been waiting for you," she called out, and Matherson knew something had happened to reinstate him. It was her old voice of love and comradeship, the tones that he hadn't heard since that morning they had quarrelled about the investment, centuries ago. (Four days are as many centuries when two people who care for each other drift apart in anger and misunderstanding.)

She ran down the steps to meet him, and then her arms were around his neck, and she was sobbing between kisses that he was the best man in the world and that she'd never forgive herself for having been so horrid never! Presently they were in the sitting-room, both of them in the big Morris chair. "Well, you've guessed that Mae Hunt has been here," she said with a quivering little smile. "She and Dorothy came just after you went out. She told me the whole thingabout her meeting you in the trolley, and telling you all her troubles and you making good with the loan of that money she was at her wit's ends to know how to raise. And what she thinks of you, Edmy! If I was a wife in a movie, I couldn't have heard her through. Actually, it wasn't respectable, the way she praised you! Adele's affectionate smile didn't match the apparent jealousy of her words. "Ed Matherson," she added, with a comically sudden change of tone, "it was noble of you, that's what I think about it. And I don't care who knows it!"

“Gosh, Adele, can that line of talk!" Matherson squirmed with embarrassment. "What's so noble in helping Skinny's girl out of a hole?-he'd have done it for you if things had turned out that way for him and me. Only it's just one of those kind of things a feller don't talk about much; that's why I didn't tell you." And, as Adele's hand tightened on his, he added hastily: "It was a good investment, anyway; she's going to pay me interest

"Yes, nine or ten per cent, of course, like those sharks you headed her off from," Adele interrupted with loving sarcasm. "No, Ed, don't pretend you weren't a mighty good friend to that girl. She feels it, all right; she says if she'd lost the ranch through not being able to

pay for the improvements poor Skinny put in, the last year of his life, it would just about have killed her. Oh, Ed, to think that I've sulked for four days, just because all you'd say about that money was 'I've put it into land,' I—well, I deserve to be there's the telephone!" she interrupted her contrite outpourings with disconcerting suddenness. "I'll answer it, dearie, I think it's from Mrs. Professor Judson, to tell me what time she wants me to come and cut her sandwiches for the tea to-morrow." She hurried out into the tiny back hall.

When she came back, she was radiant, transfigured-her husband thought as he looked at her starry eyes and flushed cheeks that he had never seen her look prettier. "Ed, what do you think? you'd never guess in the world-" and indeed he had hard work to follow her story, for she was too excited to tell it coherently. But at last he got it-most of it, anyway

and could rejoice with her in Mae Hunt's stroke of luck. "That leaves her nine acres, just about enough for her to manage," Matherson said approvingly. "Well, I told her to keep a stiff upper lip, and she'd sell the piece Skinny put on the market, if she'd just hold out for a good price. She got it, too—I'm mighty glad. Now she'll be on Easy street

"Oh, and she told me to be sure and tell you she'd pay back your loan right away," Adele interrupted. "I said I was sure you wouldn't want to hurry her-" ("Well, I guess not," Matherson put in gruffly)-"but she said she'd rather you had it just as soon as she got the money for the sale, for she supposed you'd want to invest it, or put it in the savings-bank. So I guess she'll send you a check pretty soon. Adele glanced at the clock, and sprang to her feet. "Mercy! I had no idea it was so late. I'll go for the children this minute, and get that off my chest; then we must get supper, if we want to eat before midnight. They're over at Mrs. Kelly's-I forgot to tell you, I guess -for I didn't want them all over the place while I was having my talk with you. I wanted you all to myself, dearie, while I 'fessed up!" She gave her husband a last contrite kiss and started for the door, but he put out a restraining hand. "No, wait a minute, Adele-I don't care how late supper is. I've got something I want

But she stopped him, then and there. "Don't tell me, Ed," she said earnestly. "At least, not to-night. If it was something foolish, first thing I know I'd be blaming you, and the way I feel now, after the kind of idiot I've been, is that I want to be the one that's to blame in that quarrel of ours. Don't you tell me one single word! Oh, goodness!" as the doorbell pealed loudly, "that must be Mrs. Kelly with the children. The idea of her having had to bring them back." She hurried to the door, the confession unheard.

As she took her daughter on her lap a few minutes later to pull off the pink sweater and the absurd round cap that matched, Adele suddenly burst into delighted laughter. "Ed, I almost forgot to tell you, Sister's going into vaudeville some day, instead of the movies," with a twinkle that begged him to see this was a sprightly joke. "That little Dorothy Hunt, that time they came out for Thanksgiving dinner, taught her the cutest trick with those animal blockswell, you'll just die when you see what she does. And if you'll believe me, that baby remembered, soon as she saw Dorothy again; she did it all, to-day, just as if she'd been rehearsing ever since! Smart's no word for her, I never saw anything like it. Here, I'll show you, if she isn't too sleepy to do it." Adele dived under the couch, to reappear with the box of blocks. She set Sister down on the floor, and shook the contents of the box out at the pudgy, sandalled feet. "Now find the funnies, baby-girl-watch her, Ed, don't lose a trick! She picks out three animals that she thinks a real joke, and acts like 'em. Dorothy says she taught her in about half an hour, and she never makes a mistake. Dorothy's just crazy to have her go through the whole alphabet, so I said next time Mrs. Hunt brought her out, they could spend the whole afternoon with the blocks and see

how much she'd learn. Why what's the matter, Ed? What are you looking so funny about?"

Matherson swallowed several times, then he found his voice-or a portion of it. "Three, did you say?" he asked huskily. "She picks out just three blocks by herself? Which ones?"

"She'll show you look, she's got 'em all. That's an ibex, on the I block, and she'll put her arms over her head for the horns, she's doing it now. Isn't it killing? She can't say ibex very well, but she does llama-that's the L block she's picked up now—just fine. And the owl's the cutest of all."

"Does she screw up her nose and blink her eyes, and say something that sounds like 'aw-ull'?" Matherson asked in a feeble voice. Adele looked at him with surprise. "Yes, have you seen her do it? When? I never seem to have time to watch her."

"She gave me a special performance one Sunday," the father of the vaudeville artist said dryly, picking up the three magic blocks and shifting them into a familiar combination. And as he once more read, OIL, his lips began to twitch, and the mighty laugh that is a life-saver in a tense situation rocked him from head to heels. The baby giggled, to match his merry mood, and after a moment of staring bewilderment, Buster and Adele joined in too. Helplessly, they all stood and shouted, until Adele pulled herself together with a gasping, "well, this isn't getting supper, and it's almost the children's bedtime. Ed Matherson, what's possessed you-have you taken a foolish powder!" She drove her family into the kitchen with determined speed, and lit the gas-stove. "Ed, you get busy before you feel another attack coming on. Run over to the store, will you, for a package of wheat pufflets? There's nothing in the house for the children's supper. And hurry, it's awfully late."

As he let himself into the store and switched on the light, Matherson, disregarding the injunction to hurry, leaned against the counter and looked around him with appraising and approving eyes. His little shop, his darling business venture-what a fool he had been ever to have thought that he wanted to do anything with his savings but put them back

I

HE play was precisely the kind that Roger Pender hated, an historical drama, in which cheap, old theatrical devices had been clothed in new and expensive sets by a palpably incompetent hand. Pender was more or less of an artist; he deplored the galloping hoofs off stage and the spent messenger on a sleek hackney flecked with whipped cream. There were a dozen such big scenes. But what so exasperated the young man sitting there alone in the black, tense house was the fact that these same thimble-rigged tableaux thrilled him too.

He loved the theatre well enough to prefer going by himself. A newcomer to the city, he had no trouble doing this all he pleased. His shyness concealed a dry Western wit, and neither the one nor the other made friends for him very fast among the more majestic Beaux-Arts men in the architect's office. So he prowled around, conversing with lunchcounter neighbors, night-watchmen, and others with whom he felt at ease. In the restaurants he drew sketches of the diners on the white enamel table-top until his waiter, previously so oblivious, transfixed him with a beady eye.

Now he sat deprecating with a grin the

little shiver which chased each piece of bathos up his spine and drove it home to an outraged intelligence. The Old Lodge Keeper had just recognized the muffled figure as the Marquis, his master, and was making the gesture immemorially assigned to ancient servitors on such occasions. As he performed his doddering evolutions, Pender started fumbling for his hat. He would stand no more. He would go to a café he knew. He could find reality there at least. Or, if some of the patrons were artificial, their affectations were of their own design, not the hired conventions of an ancient servitor. He had his hat now and started to leave, trying in the darkness to see what sort of people could be enthralled by such a play. He was convinced that all were persons of defective mentality. Then he recalled how nearly he himself had been ensnared by one or two scenes.

As he neared the lobby he felt a stir in the house-another thriller, no doubt. He did not condescend to turn his head, but marched on stolidly. Then far behind him, on the stage, he heard a woman's voice. One word only was spoken; spoken softly. Silence followed, but the tone still seemed to linger shyly in the dark recesses. Pender turned around and made for his seat, the single word,