ndant.'"

The older man stood up, his pencil in his mouth. "Confound you,
Richards! Either you keep still or I go to my room and lock the door."

"Oh, I'll keep still," said Richards, as if it was the first time it
had been suggested. Again there was a silence.

The letter must be to Ada's young man, who was doing a good business in
cash registers, it took so long to write it. It was within five minutes
of the time Lucyet should be at the office. She moved to leave the
piazza, when a not loud exclamation from Richards fell on her ear with
unusual distinctness.

"By Jove! I say, just listen to this."

The editor looked up threateningly, and went back to his work again
without a word.

"No, but really--it's quite in your line. Listen."

Lucyet had moved forward a step or two, when she stood motionless. The
words that floated through the window were her own. Richards had an
unusually sweet voice, and he was reading in a way entirely different
from that in which he had rattled off the "personals." There seemed a
new sweetness in every syllable; the warmth of the hillside, the
perfume of opening apple blossoms, breathed between the lines. He read
slowly, and the words fell on the still air that seemed waiting
breathless to hear them. When he finished, Lucyet was leaning against
the side of the house, her hand on her heart, her eyes shining,--and the
editor was looking at the reader.

"There," he concluded, "ain't there something of the 'blackbird's tune
and the beanflower's boon' in that?"

"Copied, of course?" inquired the editor, briefly.

"No. 'Written for the Daily Chronicle,' and signed 'L.' Not bad, are
they? Of course I don't know," Richards scoffed, "and the public
wouldn't know if it read them, but you know--"

"Read 'em again."

A second time, with increased expression, half mischievous now in its
fervor, the lines on Spring fell in musical tones from Richards's lips.
Still Lucyet stood breathless, her whole being thrilled with an impulse
of exultant, inexpressible delight, listening as she had never listened
before. It was as if she stood in the midst of a shining mist.

"She's got it in her, hasn't she?" Richards added, after a pause.

"Yes," said his companion, slowly. "She's got it in her fast enough;"
and he returned to his page of manuscript. "Much good may it do her!" he
added, with weary cynicism.

Richards laughed, and pulled a pack of cards out of his pocket. "I'll
play solitaire," he s