t a rather heady thing. Jacqueline was capable, as only
seventeen may be, of a vast and uncritical hero-worship, that gave with
both hands and never tired of giving.

"Oh!" she said at last, with a long sigh. "Listening to you is just like
reading the most exciting book, all about crowned heads, and far
countries, and society, and things like that. Jemmy ought to hear you. I
wonder why Professor Jim has never sent us any of your novels? He is
always giving us books."

"I told you," remarked Charming, "that my family did not appreciate me."

He was not quite sure whether it was a disappointment or a relief to
realize that this wide-eyed girl had not, after all, read his books.

"Will you send me some?" she asked eagerly.

"I will not," he said decidedly. "But if you care for verse--" he
hesitated.

"What? You write poetry, too?" Jacqueline clasped her hands. "Recite
some for me at once!"

He chose one of his less erotic sonnets, and spoke it well and simply,
with the diffidence which occasionally besets the most confident of
authors with regard to their own performances.

Jacqueline listened dreamily. At last she said, "That's very musical.
I'd like to sing it."

The comment pleased him exceedingly, musical phrases being his
specialty. "You shall," he said. "I'll set it to music for you."

Her eyes opened wide. "You don't mean to say you're a composer as well
as an author and a poet, Mr. Charming? That's _too_ much! It isn't
fair."

He blushed quite boyishly. It is a curious fact that people are often
more avid of praise for the thing they cannot do, than for the thing
they can. Channing, who had met with no small success as a novelist,
secretly yearned to win impossible laurels as a composer of parlor
music. "Talents usually go in pairs," he said modestly.

She commanded an instant performance, which he refused, explaining that
his songs were never written for men's voices. "They have no thrill, no
appeal. Who wants to hear a bull bellowing?"

"Or a cow lowing, for that matter?" she laughed.

"But that is very different. A cow lowing makes one think of twilight
and the home pastures, of little stumbling, nosing calves, of the
loveliest thing in life, maternity--"

She smiled, drawing the sleeping Kitty close. "You can say things like
that, and yet you wonder why I want to keep this baby! You're a fraud,
Mr. Channing!"

"A poet--The same thing," he murmured cynically. "We wear our sentiments
on our s