"Not the years before we met?" Then because she was a woman, she had to spoil the years away ?"

cup. "Nor the after I go

"No, not the years when you've gone away. You can't take this night with you, nor the other night."

He had hurt her.

---

"That's enough, then a memory.' Osmond laughed a little. It was a tender sound, as if he might scold her, but not meaning it.

"You must n't be naughty," he said. "There's nothing naughtier in a playhouse than saying what is n't true. You know if you go away you'll come back again. You can't help it. It may be a long time first. You were twenty-five years in coming this time. But you'll have to come. You know that, don't you ?” "Yes," she said gravely, "I know that." Then the memory of her wandering life and the sore straits of it voiced itself in one cry, "I don't want to go. I want to stay."

voice.

"Stay, dear playmate," said the other "There never will be a night when I'm not here. Is the playhouse key in your hand, all tight and warm? I wear mine round my neck. We shan't lose them."

Immediately she felt that she must tell him her new trouble.

"My father is coming here," she said, in a low tone.

"Ah!" he answered quickly. "You won't like that."

"How do you know?"

"From what you said the other night. You don't like him."

"Is it dreadful to you, if I don't like my father?"

"Because I see how you hate him. You would never hate without reason. You are all gentleness. You know you are. You'd go on your knees to the man that was your father, and beg him to be good enough so you could love him. And if you could n't-George! that settles him. Why, playmate, you're not crying!"

She was crying softly to herself. But for a little unconsidered sniff he need not have known it.

"I like to cry," she said, in a moment. "I like to cry — like this."

"It's awful," said the other voice, apparently to itself. "To make you cry and not know how to stop you. Don't do it, playmate!"

She laughed then.

"I won't cry," she promised, "but if you knew how pleasant it is when it only means somebody understands and likes you just as well—”

"Better," said the voice. "I always like you better. Whatever you do, that's the effect it has. Now let's talk about your father. We can't stop his coming?" "No. Nobody ever stopped him yet in anything."

"Then what can we do to him after he gets here?"

"That's what I am trying to think. Sometimes I'm afraid I must run away - before he comes."

find it."

"It is important," said she broodingly. "It seems to me all my miseries, my disgraces have come from that."

"You don't want to tell me about them? You don't think it would make them better?"

"You said you did n't care. You said what we had lived through- what I had these twenty-five years, made no difference!"

"Not to me. But when it comes to you, why, maybe I could help you."

She thought a while and then answered definitely and coldly,

"No, I can't do it. I should have to tell- too many things."

"Then we won't think of it," said the voice. "Only you must remember, there's money and there 's-Peter to take you off and hide you somewhere. You can trust Peter." Again he seemed ready to break their companionship, and she wondered miserably.

"You seem to think of nothing but my going away."

"I must think of it. Nothing is more likely."

"You don't seem to care!"

"There's but one thing I think of really. To give you a little bit of happiness while you are here. After that well, you can make the picture for yourself. I shall come to the playhouse every night - alone."

The one thing perhaps that had been the strongest in guiding her romantic youth had been eternal faithfulness. Her heart beat at the word "forever." Now her gratitude outran his calm.

"Will you do it?" she cried. "Shall I promise?"

"No! no! I would not have you do it really only want to do it. Do you think you will remember come?"

- to want to

He said the words after her, so slowly that they seemed to come from lips set with some stern emotion.

Madam Fulton was at the library table, considering her morning mail, and Billy Stark sat on the veranda just outside the window where she could call to him and be cheerfully answered. Presently Electra came in, a book, a pencil, and some slips of paper in her hand. There was intense consideration on her brow. She had on, her grandmother thought with discouragement, her clubwoman's face. Billy Stark, seeing her, got up and with his cigar and his newspaper wandered away. He had some compassion for Electra and her temperament, though not for that could he abstain from the little observances due his engagement to Madam Fulton. He had a way of bringing in a flower from the garden and presenting it to the old lady with an exaggerated significance. Electra always winced, but Madam Fulton was delighted. He called her "Florrie," prettily, and “Florrie, dear." Again Electra shrank, and then he took the wrinkled hand. One

day Madam Fulton looked up at him with a droll mischief in her eyes. "I suppose it's an awful travesty, is n't it, Billy ?"

"Not for me," said Billy loyally. "Can't I be in love with a woman at the end of fifty years? I should smile."

"It's great fun," she owned. Then more than half in earnest, "Billy, do you suppose I shall go to hell?"

This morning Electra had found something to puzzle her.

"I've been working on your book a little, grandmother," she began.

"What book? My soul and body!" The old lady saw the cover and laid down her pen. "That's my 'Recollections.' What are you doing with that?"

"They are extremely interesting," said Electra absorbedly. She sat down and laid her notes aside, to run over a doubtful page. "We are going to have an inquiry meeting on it."

"We? Who?"

"The club. Everybody was deeply disappointed because you've refused to say anything, but it occurred to us we might give an afternoon to classifying data in it, naming people you just refer to, you know. I am doing the Brook Farm section."

Madam Fulton sank back in her chair and looked despairingly from the window for Billy Stark.

"I shall never," she said, “hear the last of that book!"

"Why should you wish to hear the last of it?" asked Electra. "It is a very valuable book. It would be more so if you would only be frank about it. But I can understand that. I told the club it was your extreme delicacy. You simply could n't mention names."

"No, I could n't," murmured the old lady. "I could n't."

"But here is something, grandmother. You must help me out here. Here where you talk about the crazy philanthropist who had the colonization scheme - not Liberia no, that's farther on Well, you say he came to grandfather and asked

him to give something to the fund." She was regarding Madam Fulton with clear eyes of interrogation.

"No, no, I don't remember," said the old lady impatiently. "Well, go on." "You don't remember?"

'Yes, yes, of course I remember, in a way. But go on, Electra.”

"Well, then the philanthropist asked him to be one of the five men who would guarantee a certain sum at their death, and grandfather was indignant and said, 'Charity begins at home.' Listen." She found her page and read, "I shall assuredly leave every inch of ground and every cent I possess to my wife, and that, not because she is an advanced woman but because she is not.'

"Of course!" corroborated the old lady. "Precisely. There's a slap at suffrage. That's what I meant it for and you can tell 'em so."

Electra did not stop to register her pain at that. She held up one hand to enjoin attention.

"But listen, grandmother. You don't see the bearing of it yet. That was five years after grandfather made his will, leaving this place away from you." "Well, what of it?"

“Five years after, grandmother! And here, by his expressed intention, he meant to leave it to you - not to his son, but you. Do you see what that implies ?"

"I don't know what it implies," said the old lady, "but I know I shall fly all to pieces in about two minutes if you don't stop winding me up and asking me questions."

Electra answered quite solemnly, "It means, grandmother, that legally I inherited this place. Ethically it belongs to you. My grandfather meant to make another will. Here is his expressed intention. He neglected doing it, as people are always neglecting things that may be done at any time. It only remains for me to make it over to you."

Madam Fulton lay back in her chair for a moment and stared. She seemed incapable of measuring the irony she

felt. But Electra went quietly on,

"There is simply nothing else for me to do, and I shall do it."

Madam Fulton gasped a little and then gave up speaking. Again she glanced at the window and wished for Billy Stark. Electra was observing her compassionately.

"It excites you, does n't it?" she was saying. "I don't wonder."

Now the old lady found her tongue, but only to murmur,

"I can't even laugh. It's too funny; it's too awfully funny."

"Let me get you a little wine." Electra had put her papers together and now she

rose.

Then Madam Fulton found her strength.

--

"Sit down, Electra," she said. "Why, child, you don't realize I don't know what you'd do if you did-you don't realize I put that in there by the merest impulse."

"Of course," said Electra kindly. "I understand that. You never dreamed of its having any bearing on things as they are now, they have gone on in this way so long. But it would be shocking to me, shocking, to seem to own this house when it is yours-ethically."

"Don't say ethically. I can't stand it. There, Electra! you're a good girl. I know that. But you're conscience gone mad. You've read George Eliot till you're not comfortable unless you're renouncing something. Take things a little more lightly. You can if you give your mind to it. Now this - this is nothing but a joke. You have my word for it."

"It is n't a joke," said Electra firmly, “when grandfather could write that over his own signature and send it to a wellknown person. How did it come back into your hands, grandmother?"

But Madam Fulton looked at her, wondering what asylum Electra would put her in, if she knew the truth. She essayed a miserable gayety.

"Very well, Electra," she smiled, "call

it So, if you like, but we won't say any more about it. I can't have houses made over to me. I may totter into the grave to-morrow."

Electra's eyes went involuntarily to the garden where Billy Stark was placidly walking up and down, smoking his cigar and stopping now and then to inspect a flower. The old lady interpreted the look.

"I know, I know," she said wickedly; "but that's nothing to do with it. Besides, if I marry Billy Stark, I shall go to London to live. What do I want of houses? Let things be as they are, Electra. You keep the house in your hands and let me visit you, just as I do now. It's all one."

Electra spoke with an unmoved firmHer face had the clarity of a great and fixed resolve.

ness.

"The house is yours; not legally, I own, but".

"Don't you say ethically again, Electra," said the old lady. "I told you I could n't bear it."

She sank back still further into her chair and glared. At last Madam Fulton was afraid of her own emotions. Such amazement possessed her at the foolish irony of things, such desire of laughter, that she dared not yield lest her frail body could not bear the storm. Man's laughter, she realized, shout upon shout of robust roaring, was not too heroic for this folly. Electra was speaking:

"I insist upon the truth from others," she said, still from a basic resolution that seemed invulnerable. "I must demand it from myself."

"The truth, Electra!" groaned Madam Fulton. "You don't tell the truth." "I don't tell the truth?"

"You don't know anything about it. You've thought about it so much that now you only tell horrible facts."

This Electra could not fathom, but it was evident that she was putting it away in her consciousness for a thoughtful moment. Madam Fulton was rallying. She felt a little stronger, and she knew

she was mentally more vigorous than her young antagonist. It was only in an unchanging will that Electra distanced her.

"Electra," she said, "you've got to be awfully careful of yourself." There was a wistful kindness in her voice. It was as if she spoke to one whom she wished to regard leniently, though she might in reality shower her with that elfin raillery which was the outcome of her own inquietude.

Electra opened her eyes in a candid wonder.

mother, a pinpoint of fury in the eye. "I insist upon your listening. God Almighty meant you for a handsome, wellbehaved woman. You're not clever. There's no need of your being. But you've made yourself so intelligent that you're as dull as death. You've cultivated your talents till you've snapped them all in two. You've tried so hard to be a model of conduct that you're a horror, a positive horror. And you mark my words, the reaction will come and you'll do something so idiotic that you won't

You

"You've trained so hard, child. 've trained down to a point where it's dangerous for you to try to live."

"Trained down, grandmother? I am very well."

"I don't mean your body. I mean, you've thought of yourself and your virtues and your tendencies, and tested yourself with tubes and examined yourself under a glass until you're nothing but a bundle of self-conscious virtues. Why, it would be better for you if you were a care-free spontaneous murderess. You'd be less dangerous."

"Suppose we don't talk about it any more," said Electra, in that soothing accent suited to age.

"But I've got to talk about it. I never have done any particular duty by you, but I suppose the duty's there. I've got to tell you when you sail into dangerous latitudes. You mark my words, Electra, as sure as you sit there, you've trained so hard that there's got to be a reaction. Some day you'll fly all to pieces and make an idiot of yourself."

Electra had risen.

"Excuse me for a moment, grandmother," she said. “I must get you a glass of wine."

Madam Fulton, too, got up and rested one hand upon the table.

"If you leave the room before I've finished," she cried, "I'll scream it after you." A small red spot had come upon each cheek. She looked like a fairy god

disgraced and humble, then will be the time I shall begin to like you."

She was shaking all over, and Electra looked at her in great alarm. She dared not speak lest the paroxysm should come again. A little new gleam sprang into Madam Fulton's eyes. At last she realized that she had, though by ignoble means, quite terrified her granddaughThat one humorous certainty was enough, for the time, to mitigate her plight. She drew a quick breath, and shrugged her shoulders.

ter.

"It's over.

I

"There!" said she. don't know when I've had such a satisfying time. Run along, Electra. It won't happen again to-day." Then it occurred to her that she was foregoing an advantage, and she added shrewdly, "Though it might at any minute. But if you bring me anything to take, anything quieting or restorative, I'll throw it out of the window."

Electra, relieved slightly at the lulling of the storm, looked delicately away from her and out at the peaceful lawn. She would have been sorry to see again the red of anger in those aged cheeks. Her gaze hung arrested. Inexplicable emotion came into her face. She looked incredulous of what so fired her. Madam Fulton sat down again, breathing relief at the relaxing of her inward tension, and she too looked from the window. A man, very tall and broad, even majestic in his bearing, stood talking with Billy Stark. Billy, with all his air of breeding