"Nonsense, nonsense, Phoebe Donelson!" exclaimed the major. "Every pound

is an added charm. Sit here beside me." And he drew her into a chair at

the corner of the table.

In a twinkling of her black eyes Tempie had served her with the golden

muffins and crisp chicken. With a long sigh of absolute rapture Phoebe

resigned herself to the inevitable crash of her resolutions.

"Ah, I never was so miserable and so happy in all my life before," she

said. "I'm so hungry--and I'm so stout--and these muffins are wickedly

delicious."

"Phoebe," said the major sternly, "instead of starving yourself to death

you need to lie awake at night with lovers' troubles. Why, the summer I

courted Matilda I could have wrapped my belt around me twice. I have

never been portly since. It's loving you need, good, hard, miserable

loving. Didn't you ever hear of a 'lean and hungry lover'? Your conduct

is positively--have another muffin and this little slice of upper

joint--I say positively, unwomanly inhuman. Are there no depths of pity

in your breast? Is your bosom of adamant? When did you see David Kildare?

He is in a most pitiable condition. He left here not an hour ago and I

felt--"

"Don't worry over David, please, Major," said Phoebe as she paused with

a bit of buttered muffin suspended on the way to her white teeth. "He

is the most riotously--thank you, Tempie, just one more--happy individual

I know. What he wants he has, and he sees to it that he has what he

wants--to which add a most glorious leisure in which to want and have."

"Phoebe, David Kildare has an aching void in his heart that weighs

just one hundred and thirty-six pounds, lacking now I believe one and

three-quarters pounds plus three muffins and a half chicken. How can you

be so heartless?" The major bent a benignly stern glance upon her which

she returned with the utmost unconcern.

"He did not see you all of yesterday or the day before and only once on

Monday, and then you--"

"That sounds like one of those rhyming calendars, my dear Major.

"Monday I am going far away,

Tuesday I'll be busy all the day,

Wednesday is the day I study French,

Thursday is the--"

and Phoebe hummed the little nonsense jingle to him in a most beguiling

manner.

The major laughed delightedly. "Phoebe, some day you will be held

responsible for David Kildare's--"

"But, my dear Major," interrupted Phoebe, "how could I be expected to

work all day for raiment and food, with malted milk and eggs at the price

they are now, and then be responsible for such a perfectly irresponsible

person as David Kildare? Why, just yesterday, while I was writing up the

Farrell débutante tea with the devil waiting at my elbows for copy and

the composing room in a stew, he called me twice over the wire. He knew

better, but didn't care."




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