th happiness, as it had been written for her in the
stahs."

There was a long pause when she finished, so long that the silence began
to grow painful. Then Phil said, slowly:

"I understand now. Would you mind telling me what the measure was your
father gave you that your prince must be?"

"There were three notches. He must be clean and honahable and strong."

There was another long pause before Phil said, "Well, I wouldn't be
measuring up to that second notch if I asked you to break your promise
to your father, and you wouldn't do it even if I did. So there's nothing
more for me to say at present. But I'll ask this much. You'll keep the
turquoise if we count it merely a friendship stone, won't you?"

"Yes, I'll be glad to do that. And I'll weah it at the wedding if you
want me to, as my bit of something blue. I'll slip it down into my
glove."

"Thank you," he answered, then added, after a pause: "And I suppose
there's another thing. That yardstick keeps all the other fellows at a
distance, too. That's something to be cheerful over. But you mark my
words--I'm doing a bit of prophesying now--when your real prince comes
you'll know him by this: he'll come singing this song. Listen."

Picking up his guitar again, he struck one full deep chord and began
singing softly the "Bedouin Love-song," "From the desert I come to
thee." The refrain floated tremulously through the library window.

"Till the stars are old,
And the sun grows cold,
And the leaves of the judgment
Book unfold."

It brought back the whole moonlighted desert to Lloyd, with the odor of
orange-blossoms wafted across it, as it had been on two eventful
occasions they rode over it together. She sat quite still in the
hammock, with the bit of turquoise clasped tight in her hand. It was
hard to listen to such a beautiful voice unmoved. It thrilled her as no
song had ever done before.

As it floated into the library, it thrilled Mary also, but in a
different way; for with a guilty start she realized that she had been
listening to something not meant for her to hear.

"Oh, what have I done! What have I done!" she whispered to herself,
dropping the book and noiselessly wringing her hands. She could hear
voices on the stairs now. Eugenia and Betty were coming down, and Rob's
whistle down the avenue told that he was on his way to join them. Too
ashamed to face any one just then, and afraid that her guilty