almost a monologue. "Why haven't you ever talked like this before? I
always thought I had to do it all and here you talk better than I ever
thought of doing because you have something to say and mine is just
chatter and nonsense."

He smiled at that.

"I love your chatter. But you are tired to-day and it is my turn. Do you
know what we are going to do after luncheon?"

"No, what?"

"We are going to take a canoe out on your Paradise and get into a shady
spot somewhere along the bank and you will lean back against a whole lot
of becoming cushions and put up that red parasol of yours so nobody but
me can see your face and then--"

"Dicky! Dicky! Whatever is in you to-day? Paradise, pillows and parasols
are familiar symptoms. You will be making love to me next."

"I might, at that," murmured Dick. "But you did not hear the rest of
my proposition. And then--I shall read you a story--a story that I
wrote myself."

"Dick!" Tony nearly upset her glass of iced tea in her amazement at this
unexpected announcement. "You don't mean you have really and truly
written a story!"

"Honest to goodness--such as it is. Please to remember it is my maiden
effort and make a margin of allowance. But I want your criticism,
too--all the benefit of your superior academic training."

"Superior academic bosh!" scoffed Tony. "I'll bet it is a corking
story," she added unacademically. "Come on. Let's go, quick. I can't
wait to hear it."

Nothing loath to get away speedily before the newsboys began to cry the
accident through the streets, Dick escorted his pretty companion back to
the campus and on to Paradise, at which point they took a canoe and,
finally selecting a shady point under an over-reaching sycamore tree,
drifted in to shore where Tony leaned against the cushions, tilted her
parasol as specified at the angle which forbade any but Dick to see her
charming, expressive young face and commanded him to "shoot."

Dick shot. Tony listened intently, watching his face as he read, feeling
as if this were a new Dick--a Dick she did not know at all, albeit a most
interesting person.

"Why Dick Carson!" she exclaimed when he finished. "It is great--a real
story with real laughter and tears in it. I love it. It is so--so human."

The author flushed and fidgeted and protested that it wasn't much--just a
sketch done from life with a very little dressing up and polishing down.

"I have a lot more of them in my head, though," he added. "And