omfortable 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."

"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," Mr