t made it,--then you'll understand her."

Impressed by the sincerity of his visitor's manner, touched by the
unexpected poetry of his appeal, and yet keenly alive to the absurdity
of an incomprehensible blunder somewhere committed, the editor gasped
almost hysterically,--

"But why should all this make her in love with ME?"

"Because ye are both gifted," returned Mr. Bowers, with sad but
unconquerable conviction; "because ye're both, so to speak, in a line
o' idees and business that draws ye together,--to lean on each other and
trust each other ez pardners. Not that YE are ezakly her ekal," he went
on, with a return to his previous exasperating naivete, "though I've
heerd promisin' things of ye, and ye're still young, but in matters
o' this kind there is allers one ez hez to be looked up to by
the other,--and gin'rally the wrong one. She looks up to you, Mr.
Editor,--it's part of her po'try,--ez she looks down inter the brush
and sees more than is plain to you and me. Not," he continued, with a
courteously deprecating wave of the hand, "ez you hain't bin kind to
her--mebbe TOO kind. For thar's the purty letter you writ her, thar's
the perlite, easy, captivatin' way you had with her gals and
that boy--hold on!"--as the editor made a gesture of despairing
renunciation,--"I ain't sayin' you ain't right in keepin' it to
yourself,--and thar's the extry money you sent her every time. Stop! she
knows it was EXTRY, for she made a p'int o' gettin' me to find out the
market price o' po'try in papers and magazines, and she reckons you've
bin payin' her four hundred per cent. above them figgers--hold on! I
ain't sayin' it ain't free and liberal in you, and I'd have done the
same thing; yet SHE thinks"--

But the editor had risen hastily to his feet with flushing cheeks.

"One moment, Mr. Bowers," he said, hurriedly. "This is the most dreadful
blunder of all. The gift is not mine. It was the spontaneous offering
of another who really admired our friend's work,--a gentleman who"--He
stopped suddenly.

The sound of a familiar voice, lightly humming, was borne along the
passage; the light tread of a familiar foot was approaching. The editor
turned quickly towards the open door,--so quickly that Mr. Bowers was
fain to turn also.

For a charming instant the figure of Jack Hamlin, handsome, careless,
and confident, was framed in the doorway. His dark eyes, with their
habitual scorn of his average fellow-man, swept superciliously o