he jump on me, Dominie," complained the Little Red Doctor to
me. "But, at that, we're going to give him a fight. She's clear grit,
that youngster is. She's got a philosophy of life, too. I don't know
where she got it, or just what it is, but it's there. Oh, she's worth
saving, Dominie."

"If I hadn't reason to think you safeguarded, my young friend," said I,
"I'd give you solemn warning."

"Why, she's an infant!" returned the Little Red Doctor scornfully. "A
poor, little, monkey-faced child. Besides--" He stopped and sighed.

"Yes; I know," I assented. There was at that time a "Besides" in the
Little Red Doctor's sorrowful heart which bulked too large to admit of
any rivalry. "Nevertheless," I added, "you needn't be so scornful about
the simian type in woman. It's a concentrated peril to mankind. I've
seen trouble caused in this world by kitten faces, by pure, classic
faces, by ox-eyed-Juno faces, by vivid blond faces, by dreamy, poetic
faces, by passionate Southern faces, but for real power of catastrophe,
for earthquake and eclipse, for red ruin and the breaking up of laws,
commend me to the humanized, feminized monkey face. I'll wager that when
Antony first set eyes on Cleopatra, he said, 'And which cocoa palm did
she fall out of?' Phryne was of the beautified baboon cast of features,
and as for Helen of Troy, the best authorities now lean to the belief
that the face that launched a thousand ships and fired the topless
towers of Ilium was a reversion to the arboreal. I tell you, man that is
born of woman cannot resist it. Give little Mayme three more years--"

"I wish to God I could," said the Little Red Doctor.

"Can't you?" I asked, startled. "Is it as bad as that?"

"It isn't much better. How's your insomnia, Dominie?"

"Insomnia," said I, "is a scientific quibble for unlaid memories. I take
mine out for the early morning air at times, if that's what you mean."

"It is. Keep an eye on the kid, and do what you can to prevent that busy
little mind of hers from brooding."

In that way Mayme McCartney and I became early morning friends. She
adopted for her special own a bench some rods from mine under the lilac
near the fountain. After her walk, taken with her thin shoulders flung
back and the chest filling with deep, slow breaths, she would pay me a
call or await one from me and we would exchange theories and opinions
and argue about this and other worlds. Seventy against seventeen. Fair
exchange, for, if mi