bout it to want to be all the world to him. But I
don't know that even the most worried fellow has any real cause to be
scared, as long as the girl in question still remains the only
flesh-and-blood girl on the face of the earth whom he wishes _did_
like him well enough to want to be 'all the world' to him."

"The only 'flesh-and-blood' girl?" scoffed the Doctor. "Oh, you're all
right, Stanton. I like you and all that. But I'm mighty glad just the
same that it isn't my daughter whom you're going to marry, with all
this 'Molly Make-Believe' nonsense lurking in the background. Cut it
out, Stanton, I say. Cut it out!"

"Cut it out?" mused Stanton somewhat distrait. "Cut it out? What!
Molly Make-Believe?"

Under the quick jerk of his knees the big box of letters and papers
and things brimmed over in rustling froth across the whole surface of
the table. Just for a second the muscles in his throat tightened a
trifle. Then, suddenly he burst out laughing--wildly, uproariously,
like an excited boy.

"Cut it out?" he cried. "But it's such a joke! Can't you see that it's
nothing in the world except a perfectly delicious, perfectly
intangible joke?"

"U--m--m," reiterated the Doctor.

In the very midst of his reiteration, there came a sharp rap at the
door, and in answer to Stanton's cheerful permission to enter, the
so-called "delicious, intangible joke" manifested itself abruptly in
the person of a rather small feminine figure very heavily muffled up
in a great black cloak, and a rose-colored veil that shrouded her nose
and chin bluntly like the nose and chin of a face only half hewed out
as yet from a block of pink granite.

"It's only Molly," explained an undeniably sweet little alto voice.
"Am I interrupting you?"

VII

Jumping to his feet, the Doctor stood staring wildly from Stanton's
amazed face to the perfectly calm, perfectly accustomed air of poise
that characterized every movement of the pink-shrouded visitor. The
amazement in fact never wavered for a second from Stanton's blush-red
visage, nor the supreme serenity from the lady's whole attitude. But
across the Doctor's startled features a fearful, outraged
consciousness of having been deceived, warred mightily with a
consciousness of unutterable mirth.

Advancing toward the fireplace with a rather slow-footed, hesitating
gait, the little visitor's attention focused suddenly on the cluttered
table and she cried out with unmistakable delight. "Why,