I ever wanted in
my life--you and papa gave it all to me--and it's about time I began
to pay back. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do anything--but
something's got to be done."

"But you needn't talk of it like THAT!" insisted the mother,
plaintively. "It's not--it's not--"

"No, it's not," said Mary. "I know that!"

"How did they happen to ask you to dinner?" Mr. Vertrees inquired,
uneasily. "'Stextrawdn'ry thing!"

"Climbers' hospitality," Mary defined it. "We were so very cordial and
easy! I think Mrs. Sheridan herself might have done it just as any kind
old woman on a farm might ask a neighbor, but it was Miss Sheridan who
did it. She played around it awhile; you could see she wanted to--she's
in a dreadful hurry to get into things--and I fancied she had an idea it
might impress that Lamhorn boy to find us there to-night. It's a sort of
house-warming dinner, and they talked about it and talked about it--and
then the girl got her courage up and blurted out the invitation. And
mamma--" Here Mary was once more a victim to incorrigible merriment.
"Mamma tried to say yes, and COULDN'T! She swallowed and squealed--I
mean you coughed, dear! And then, papa, she said that you and she had
promised to go to a lecture at the Emerson Club to-night, but that her
daughter would be delighted to come to the Big Show! So there I am,
and there's Mr. Jim Sheridan--and there's the clock. Dinner's at
seven-thirty!"

And she ran out of the room, scooping up her fallen furs with a gesture
of flying grace as she sped.

When she came down, at twenty minutes after seven, her father stood in
the hall, at the foot of the stairs, waiting to be her escort through
the dark. He looked up and watched her as she descended, and his gaze
was fond and proud--and profoundly disturbed. But she smiled and nodded
gaily, and, when she reached the floor, put a hand on his shoulder.

"At least no one could suspect me to-night," she said. "I LOOK rich,
don't I, papa?"

She did. She had a look that worshipful girl friends bravely called
"regal." A head taller than her father, she was as straight and jauntily
poised as a boy athlete; and her brown hair and her brown eyes were
like her mother's, but for the rest she went back to some stronger and
livelier ancestor than either of her parents.

"Don't I look too rich to be suspected?" she insisted.

"You look everything beautiful, Mary," he said, huskily.

"And my dress?" She threw open her dark ve