Jewel Weed

"It sounds as though it might be more of a pleasure than a painful

duty."

"So it would. You'd take to her, I know," the young man went on eagerly.

Mrs. Lenox watched him in somewhat irritated amusement. "She hasn't

your brains, of course, Madeline, but she has such charm, such

simplicity and freshness, that you can't help liking her. And she grubs

away at perfectly uncongenial work, and lives with this fusty old mother

in a fusty little lodging-house. It makes me sick to think of such daily

crucifixion. I've no business to say it, I know; but when you spoke

about a week at the lake, I couldn't help thinking what such a thing

would mean to her. She'd think herself in Paradise."

"I suppose, Dick, that this is your adroit and tactful way of suggesting

that I should ask her," Mrs. Lenox said, laughing.

And Madeline, who, if Dick had proposed that Mrs. Lenox should turn her

very charming summer home into an orphan asylum, would have considered

that the proposition, as coming from him, was entitled to consideration,

put in: "I think it would be a lovely thing to do, Vera."

"And we should probably let ourselves in for a frightful bore."

"And you might entertain an angel unawares," said Dick.

Mrs. Lenox knit her brows and meditated. She didn't quite like Dick's

championship of this unknown girl, nor did she trust to his judgment;

but, like a wise woman, she wanted to know what was the thing that had

attracted him, and was big enough in heart to be willing to do a good

turn wherever she could.

"This is the oracle of the Pythia," she said at last. "We will not

commit ourselves to anything at the behest of Richard Percival. On my

way to the station, now, in fact, Madeline and I will go to see this

rose among cabbages. We will introduce ourselves as your friends, Dick.

If we think you are a mere deluded male thing, there the matter ends. If

we, too, are carried away by enthusiasm, we will invite her on the spur

of the moment, and Mr. Lenox, who, like most married men, is a

connoisseur in pretty girls, can talk to her. Will this suit you, Dick?"

"Excellently," said Dick, "I know the result."

"Then you'll come next Saturday? Madeline is coming day after to-morrow

and I'll write to Mr. Norris. Heaven send these days of sun continue.

Now if we are to pay this call, and I am to catch my train, we must be

off."

Miss Quincy, having quarreled with her mother over her extravagance in

buying a feather boa with the proceeds of her last small check, was

seated by the window, industriously concocting a new hat. The Swedish

"girl", whose unfortunate fate it was to minister to the wants of Mrs.

Olberg's lodgers, gave a kind of defiant pound on the door, opened it

and thrust in a disheveled blond head, followed by a hand puckered from

the dish-water.