Andrew the Glad

"Yes," she said, "that was it. And Mrs. Matilda and Phoebe motored out

with him and David went on his horse. I am making calls, only I didn't. I

stopped to--" and she glanced down with wild confusion, for the book

spread out before her was the major's old family Bible, and the type was

too bold to fail to declare its identity to his quick glance.

"Don't worry," he hastened to say, "I don't mind. I read it myself

sometimes, when I'm in a certain mood."

"It was for David--he wanted to read something to Phoebe," she answered

in ravishing confusion, and pointed to the open page.

Thus Andrew Sevier was forced by old Fate to come near her and bend with

her over the book. The tip of her exquisite finger ran along the lines

that have figured in the woman question for many an age.

"'For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely

trust in her'"--and so on down the page she led him.

"And that was what the trouble was about," she said when they had read

the last word in the last line. She raised her eyes to his with laughter

in their depths. "It was a very dreadful battle and Phoebe won. The major

found this for him to read to her and she said she did not intend to go

into the real estate business for her husband or to rise while it was yet

night to give him his breakfast. Aren't they funny, _funny_?" and she

fairly rippled with delight at her recollection of the vanquishing of the

intrepid David.

"The standards for a wife were a bit strenuous in those days," he

answered, smiling down on her. "I'm afraid Dave will have trouble finding

one on those terms. And yet--" he paused and there was a touch of mockery

in his tone.

"I think that a woman could be very, very happy fulfilling every one of

those conditions if she were woman enough," answered Caroline Darrah

Brown, looking straight into his eyes with her beautiful, disconcerting,

dangerous young seriousness.

Andrew picked up his manuscript with the mental attitude of catching at a

straw.

"Oh," she said quickly, "you were going to read to the major, weren't

you?" And the entreaty in her eyes was as young as her seriousness; as

young as that of a very little girl begging for a wonder tale. The heart

of a man may be of stone but even flint flies a spark.

Andrew Sevier flushed under his pallor and ruffled his pages back to a

serenade he had written, with which the star for whom the play was being

made expected to exploit a deep-timbred voice in a recitative

vocalization. And while he read it to her slowly, Fate finessed on the

third round.