Once she half turned as though she felt his scrutiny, and queer pains

darted through his body when her eyes met his.

Now when Mr. Elton attacked him, he came back from his far-away

excursion with a sense of surprise that there was a present, but he

smiled cheerfully.

"Oh, I'm not a very important person. I'm just beginning to learn the

trade of a newspaper man, and I'm afraid I shan't be able to think about

much but city news and bread and butter for the next few years."

"No telling what may happen, with his Honor, the mayor here, backed up

by the power of the press. We'll make St. Etienne a model city in the

sight of gods and men, eh, boys?" said Mr. Elton good-humoredly, but

rising as if to cut short the conversation.

"Can't we take a walk before Ellery and I go back to town?" asked Dick.

"Go, you kid things. I haven't seen the evening paper yet, and that's

more to my old brain than moonlight strolls." Mr. Elton dismissed them.

The three young people set out upon a path that twisted by the lake

shore, bordered on its inner side by trees that had become in the

darkness mere shapeless masses out of which an occasional mysterious

thread of light brought into sight some uncanny shape. The purple of the

evening zenith had sunk into deeper and deeper blue, pricked here and

there with stars. Bats were wheeling in mysterious circles among the

tree-tops, and the air was full of sounds that seem to come only at

twilight.

"Isn't it strange that though every one of those trees is an old friend,

I should be frightened at the very idea of being alone among them at

night? And yet there's nothing in the dark that isn't in the day," said

Madeline.

"Oh, yes, there is," Dick rejoined. "There's more being afraid in the

dark."

She laughed and they went on in silence.

"Who's been building a new house, just on the very spot I always meant

to own some day--right here next to your father?" Dick demanded,

stopping abruptly.

"Oh, you haven't seen that, have you?" said Madeline. "Let's sit down on

this log and look at the stars. That's Mr. Lenox's new house; and I'm so

sorry for them!"

"Why grieve for the prosperous? Reserve your tears for the suffering."

"Why, you know, in town, they live with Mr. Windsor, who is Mrs. Lenox's

father, and he's a multimillionaire; and it's a great establishment; and

the world is necessarily very much with them. So when Mr. Lenox proposed

that they should build a country house of their own and spend their

summers here, I think he wanted to get out to some primitive simplicity,

where the children could go barefoot if they wanted to. But as soon as

it was suggested, Mr. Windsor presented his daughter with a big tract,

and insisted on building this great palace, and they have to keep so

many servants that Mr. Lenox says it is a regular Swedish

boarding-house. And there are so many guest-rooms that it would be a

shame not to have them occupied; and extra people run out in their

motors every day; and the children have to be kept immaculate all the

time. So they've brought the world out with them. Mr. Lenox has to dress

for dinner, instead of putting on old slippers and going out to weed the

strawberry-bed, which is what he would like to do when he gets out on

the evening train."




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