crazy about him.” Her bright little eyes became noticeably brighter. “I never could see my mother very far. And of course he died, three years after they were divorced, and she married the most sickening, cake-eating, old lounge lizard. Well, so it goes, doesn’t it? Hating the step-papa is the one subject on earth that Grammer and I agree on.”

She was moving restlessly about the room, and her roving gaze came to rest on the Persian rug. “Nice,” she commented briefly. “My Dad collected ’em: I’ve got miles of ’em in cold storage. Well, tell me about yourself! What do you do at the mill?”

Glen hesitated. “I don’t know what to call my position, exactly. I’m Luke’s assistant, really; I help him in any way he needs me. He has been bookkeeper and helped the superintendent, and now[95] the old superintendent is leaving and Luke will have his place.”

[95]

“Luke? Oh, yes—the sheik who was just here!”

Glen stared.

“Sheik,” repeated Miss Jennings, mirthfully. “Maiden’s Dream. Very easy to look at, I’ll say. Seems to pack a grouch, though. Well, I see The Hill has kept it up.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I mean, the little snobs are still high-hatting you, just as they did years ago. Nancy Carey admitted freely that she never saw you, but she added handsomely that you were a very nice girl. They can’t see you with a telescope, can they?”

“I don’t need them, and I don’t want them,” said Glen, briefly.

“’Atta girl!” The Northerner approved. “Tell ’em to go jump on themselves. Nancy’s harmless, though: no real meanness in her. She’s a dumb-bell. Well, then, who are your little playmates?”

Glen considered. “Miss Ada—who lives with me—and Luke Manders——”

It was Miss Jennings’s turn to stare. “No kids?”

“Oh, yes, of course—the children at the mill! On Sundays, I take them for picnics, and I teach them——”

“You don’t get me. I mean—girls of your own age—fellows. Don’t you ever step out?”

[96]Glen shook her head. “I work all day, you see, and at night I read and study.”

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