didn't come to see me." Whereupon Elinor smoothed the two small wrinkles of impatience out of her brow, tucked her letter into her bosom, and went down to meet the early morning caller.

Mr. Brookes Ormsby, club-man, gentleman of athletic leisure, and inheritor of the Ormsby millions, was pacing back and forth before the handful of fire in the drawing-room grate when she entered.

"You don't deserve to have a collie sheep-dog friend," he protested reproachfully. "How was I to know that you were going away?"

Another time Elinor might have felt that she owed him an explanation, but just now she was careful, and troubled about the packing.

"How was I to know you didn't know?" she retorted. "It was in the Transcript."

"Well!" said Ormsby. "Things have come to a pretty pass when I have to keep track of you through the society column. I didn't see the paper. Dyckman brought me word last night at Vineyard Haven, and we broke a propeller blade on the Amphitrite trying to get here in time."

"I am so sorry—for the Amphitrite," she said. "But you are here, and in good season. Shall I call mother and Nell?"

"No. I ran out to see if I'm in time to do your errands for you—take your tickets, and so on."

"Oh, we shouldn't think of troubling you. James can do all those things. And failing James, there is a very dependable young woman at the head of this household. Haven't I 'personally conducted' the family all over Europe?"

"James is a base hireling," said the caller, blandly. "And as for the capable young woman: do I or do I not recollect a dark night on the German frontier when she was glad enough to call on a sleepy fellow pilgrim to help her wrestle with a particularly thick-headed customs officer?"

"If you do, it is not especially kind of you to remind her of it."

He looked up quickly, and the masterful soul of the man, for which the clean-cut, square-set jaw and the athletic figure were the outward presentments, put on a mask of deference and humility.

"You are hard with me, Elinor—always flinty and adamantine, and that sort. Have you no soft side at all?"

She laughed.

"The sentimental young woman went out some time ago, didn't she? One can't be an anachronism."

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