Madeline Elton, therefore, wished herself back again with the fallen

maple leaves and the pines that held their own; and Mrs. Lenox was

fitting temptation to desire as the two hobnobbed over cups of tea in

easy friendliness. When Dick Percival appeared, Mrs. Lenox saw the way

to make her bait irresistible.

"Dick," she cried, "just the man! Don't you pine for sunshine in your

nostrils instead of city smoke? Doesn't the thought of winter coming,

cold and long, make you appreciate these last heavenly gleams? Do you

remember what a delicious week you and Mr. Norris and Madeline spent

with me a year ago?"

"Yes, to everything," said Dick. "All of which means--what? No cream,

please, Madeline."

"All of which means," answered the lady, "that Mr. Lenox and I are wise

in our generation and do not fly to the city when the first birds go

south; that I want Madeline to come and pay me a visit; that, as a kind

of sugar-plum, a chromo, if you please, to induce her to buy my wares, I

propose that you and Mr. Norris should join us on the Sunday of next

week. What do you say?"

"May the Lord prosper you, and I'll do my part as an attraction," Dick

replied heartily. "But I choose to be a sugar-plum rather than a chromo,

especially if Madeline is going to eat me."

"I didn't need any additional inducement, Mrs. Lenox," said Madeline.

"Yourselves and all out-doors are surely sufficient. It will be good to

get away from the grime. Now what bee have you in your bonnet, Dick?"

For a new look had come into his face as she spoke.

Percival had been glancing around the cheerful comfortable room whose

very books and pictures suggested peace of mind. It seemed to him that

he looked with Lena's longing eyes rather than with his own, familiar

with these surroundings. He was thinking how little his small courtesies

counted, and how much these women could do if they chose. Why shouldn't

he be bold? Madeline and Mrs. Lenox were simple-hearted enough to take

his plea at its true value, and not misunderstand his motives. They

would be interested in Lena in exactly the same way he was. He smiled at

Madeline's serenely inquiring face.

"Well, Dick?" she asked again.

"I was wondering whether I dared to suggest a little act of human

kindliness to you two. You women are so much more ready to do such

things than men are, but we are more apt to run up against the cases

where it is needed. There's a pathetic little girl doing some hack work

for the Star. Norris knows her. She's just one of those delicate

creatures that ought to live in the sheltered corner of a garden, and

she's out on a bleak prairie. She's about as much like the people she

has to associate with as an old-fashioned single rose is like a cabbage.

Even her mother, who is the only relative she has, is nothing but a

fretful porcupine of a woman. I've been to see them a few times and the

situation seems to me almost intolerable. If ever a girl needed a friend

or two, it's she--not for charity, you understand, but just for real

contact with people of her own kind. Now a man's not much use in such

circumstances, is he? But naturally I think you are about the best kind

of a friend in the world, so I came up this afternoon partly to see if

you wouldn't give her a hand."




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