cent before I found it. It occurred to me that, perhaps, you--" He was beginning to flounder.

"That I am out of work?" she finished, calmly. "You are right." Laurie beamed at her. Surely his way was clear now! 

"I had a streak of luck last year," he resumed. "I collaborated on a play that people were foolish enough to like. Ever since that, money has poured in on me in the most vulgar way. I clink when I walk. Dollars ooze from my pockets when I make a gesture. Last week, at the bank, the cashier begged me to take some of my money away and do something with it. He said it was burdening the institution. So, as your adopted brother, I'm going to start a bank-account for you," he ended, simply.

"Indeed you are not!"

"Indeed I am!"

"I agreed to live. I did not agree to--what is it you Americans say?--to sponge!"

He ignored all but one phrase of the reply. "What do you mean by that?" he demanded with quickened interest. "Aren't you an American?"

She bit her lip.

"N-o--not wholly."

"What, then?"

She hesitated.

"I can't tell you that just yet," she said at last.

"Oh-h!" Laurie pursed his lips in a noiseless whistle. The girl's voice was musically English, and though her accent was that of London, up till now she had spoken as colloquially as any American. Indeed, her speech was much like his sister's. He was puzzled.

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"That I am not wholly American?" She was smiling at him ironically, but he remained serious.

"Yes. And--oh, a lot of things! Of course you know I am all at sea about you."

The familiar shadow fell over her 

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