brave, sweet smile. "That's no sign."

"But if I really wasn't a genius? And I have had so many splendid plans
and plots in my brain; but when they come out, they are flat and weak. I
don't ever expect to stand on the top-most round; but I can't stay down
at the bottom always. I would rather not be anywhere."

Ben comforted her in his quiet fashion.

"Oh, what should I do without you!" she cried. "I want to achieve
something for your sake."

"You will achieve. And if you do not, there is enjoyment left. You
inspire other people."

"With a kind of girlish nonsense that passes for wit. But older minds
demand the real article."

"You have a certain brightness of talk that brings out the best in other
people. That is a rare gift, I am beginning to observe. Put the novel by
for a little while."

"But every time I take it out, it seems worse," she returned ruefully.

Then she admitted another worry.

"Aunt Patty stumbled and fell about a month ago in her room. She was
lame for some days; and I can see she isn't quite the same. Mother
thinks it was a stroke. She is old, you know, and if she should be laid
up! She clings to me so. You see, she misses Nora, who was running in
and out, and the young girls who came here, and--oh, Ben, I am afraid I
am growing stupid!"

Ben laughed and kissed her, and told her not to cross bridges until she
came to them.

Then Theodore went to Washington for a fortnight; and Ben felt that it
was hard for Delia to be bereft of that useful article, a man around the
house. When Theodore returned, there was an imperative journey to the
West. Already there were clouds rising that disquieted the wisest
statesmen who were studying how to prevent any outward clashing. Mr.
Whitney, with his _savoir faire_, was considered one of the best men to
send on a _quasi_ political mission.

"You just drop in to supper every evening, Ben," he said with his
Good-bye. "Dele has a head worth that of any half-dozen women; but I
like to feel some one is looking after her. Mother is away a good deal."

The. had a misgiving Ben and Delia might want to marry; but they
couldn't possibly spare Delia. So he was very friendly and obliging to
Ben.

"Mother," oddly enough, was taking a great interest in the small end of
the woman question, that was pushing its way in among other things. Mr.
Whitney had been the most indulgent of husbands, and her sons had
accepted household discomforts with no grumbling. But she t