rs. Gwynne. "Will you not say to your mother
that we should take good care of her?"

"Oh, Mrs. Gwynne, that is awfully good of you, but I am a little afraid
you would find her quite a handful. As I have said, she is a spoiled
little monkey and not easy to do with. She would give you all a lot of
trouble," added Dean, looking at Nora.

"Trouble? Not at all," said Nora. "She could do just as she likes here.
We would give her Polly and let her roam. And on the farm she would find
a number of things to interest her."

"It would be an awfully good thing for her, I know," said Dean, vainly
trying to suppress the eagerness in his tone, "and if you are really
sure that it would not be too much of a burden I might write."

"No burden at all, Mr. Wakeham," said Mrs. Gwynne. "If you will write
and ask Mrs. Wakeham, and bring her with you when you return, we shall
do what we can to make her visit a happy one, and indeed, it may do the
dear child a great deal of good."

Thus it came about that the little city child, delicate, fretted,
spoiled, was installed in the household at Lakeside Farm for a visit
which lengthened out far beyond its original limits. The days spent upon
the farm were full of bliss to her, the only drawback to the perfect
happiness of the little girl being the separation from her beloved fidus
Achates, with whom she maintained an epistolary activity extraordinarily
intimate and vivid. Upon this correspondence the Wakeham family came
chiefly to depend for enlightenment as to the young lady's activities
and state of health, and it came to be recognised as part of Larry's
duty throughout the summer to carry a weekly bulletin regarding Elfie's
health and manners to the Lake Shore summer home, where the Wakehams
sought relief from the prostrating heat of the great city. These week
ends at the Lake Shore home were to Larry his sole and altogether
delightful relief from the relentless drive of business that even
throughout the hottest summer weather knew neither let nor pause.

It became custom that every Saturday forenoon Rowena's big car would
call at the Rookery Building and carry off her father, if he chanced to
be in town, and Larry to the Lake Shore home. An hour's swift run over
the perfect macadam of the Lake Shore road that wound through park
and boulevard, past splendid summer residences of Chicago financial
magnates, through quiet little villages and by country farms, always
with gleams of Michigan's bl