function, for
only people of leisure and distinction were at liberty at that hour.
The young gentlemen from the bank generally emerged about that time
too, and came striding down to the post-office looking worried and
flurried as became gentlemen with the finances of the whole town and
half the country weighing them down. After they had all met at the
post-office, they went up to the ice-cream and candy palace on Main
Street, or out on the lake, or strolled off into the park.

It was a member of the post-office parade who was hailing Roderick so
gaily. A pretty group was rustling past the office, all muslin frills
and silk sashes and flowers of every colour, and the prettiest and best
dressed of them all came running up the steps to his side, with a swish
of silken skirts and a whiff of violet perfume.

It was Miss Leslie Graham, the girl he had helped out of the lake, not
forlorn and bedraggled now, but immaculate and dainty, from the rose
wreath on her big hat to the tip of her white kid shoe.

"Hello!" she cried gaily. "I thought you'd surely 'phone over to see
whether I needed to make my will or not. You're not much of a lawyer."

Roderick laughed. She was so frank and boyish that she put him quite
at his ease.

"Well,--not knowing I was the family advocate, I didn't like to," he
said slyly.

She laughed delightedly. "You're going to be after this, I can tell
you. Daddy's out of town and he doesn't know yet!"

"There's no need to worry him by telling."

"Oh, but there just is. I haven't told a soul yet, and I nearly had to
commit murder to keep it from Mother. Fred's in a pink fit every
minute for fear I'll let it out. I've got heaps of fun holding it over
his head. It makes him good and obedient. Is Lawyer Ed in?"

"No. Do you wish to see him?"

"No, of course not. I just wondered if he wouldn't keep house, though,
for a few minutes, while you came along and joined the bunch. We're
all going to make Alf take us for ice-cream. We spied him leaving
here. Can't you come?"

"Thank you, but I'm afraid I couldn't leave," said Roderick, rather
taken aback by her frankness. That ideal woman, who sat dimly
enthroned in the recesses of his heart, never offered her favours, they
had to be sued for, and she was apt to sit in judgment on the girl who
departed from her strict rule.

"Come on, Les!" called a voice from the lingering group she had left.
"Here's Alf. He's going to treat us all. H