ideas are so strange, and my little girl is still so young
and impressionable, I object to having them much together. It may seem
very absurd, when Jewel is so young."

"No; I saw last evening how interested Miss Eloise already is."

"Oh," hastily, "she pretends to be, and I assure you I object. Eloise
has a good mind, and I hope you will offer a little antidote now
and then to the stuff she has begun to read. A word to the wise, Dr.
Ballard. I need say no more."

It was true. Mrs. Evringham had no need to say more. Her ideas, and
especially those which related to himself, had always been inscribed in
large characters and words of one syllable for her present companion,
who was a young man of considerable perception and discrimination.

He had not time to reply before Jewel, radiant of face, appeared in the
doorway, where she hesitated, her doll in her arms.

"I brought Anna Belle," she said doubtfully, "but I can leave her under
the stairs if there isn't room."

"Anna Belle under the stairs on a morning like this! And in such a
toilet? Talk about error!" The doctor's tone was tragic as he lifted the
happy child into the buggy.

Mrs. Evringham nodded a reply to their smiling farewells as Hector
sprang forward, and she looked after them in some perplexity.

"Why should he take the trouble?" she reflected. "It would have been
such a splendid morning for them to have gone riding if he had this
leisure. Of course it must have been just one of his indirect and lovely
ways of trying to please Eloise."

Just as she was solacing herself with the latter reflection, her
daughter stepped out on the piazza, a little black book in her hand.

"Warm enough to sit out, isn't it?" she remarked.

Her mother looked at her critically. She had not seen this care-free
look on her child's face since Lawrence died.

"Why didn't you come out a little sooner?"

"I wasn't presentable. How delicious the air is!"

"Yes. Let us sit here and finish that novel."

"All right."

"What have you there?"

"Mrs. Eddy's book,--'Science and Health.'"

Mrs. Evringham made a grimace. "I read part of it once. That was enough
for me. Think of the price they charge for it, too. Think of pretending
it is such a good thing for everybody to have, and then putting a price
on it that prohibits the average pocketbook." Eloise's smile annoyed her
mother. "Weren't you with me the day Nat Bonnell's mother said so much
about it?"

"How foolish she wa