ock--and he would strike a light, and then thoughtlessly
throw the dead match either towards the window or the fireplace.

As he pointed out to Kate, the wish to do well was plainly imbedded in
his breast, or he would simply fling the useless thing down at his feet.
Conscience was not deadened in him; he was quite aware that matches
should not be casually strewn upon a carpet, and in his most
absent-minded moods he sent them in the direction of those approved
receptacles--the window or fireplace. Let her blame others if the window
was closed--the sole use of a window, as far as he could see, was to
throw matches through,--or if the fireplace was ridiculously decorated
with plants and such foolishness, instead of holding its rightful
consuming element for used vestas.

When Fortune smiled so marvellously on Hugh, one of the first things he
did was to go down to the city, and with his own hands take down the
strip of painted tin that, in a building of offices, announced "Miss
Kinross, Typist."

He was on the verge of following this act by dropping the typewriter out
of the window, when Kate came in just in time to point out to him that
some one might be passing beneath, and so receive a worse headache from
the thing than it had ever given her. She accepted, as wholeheartedly as
he gave it, an income of two hundred a year from him. But she clung to
her old typewriter, and copied lovingly all his stories for him.

A deprecatory little cough just below him took Hugh's attention from
himself, and the place he had come so unexpectedly to occupy in the
economic scheme of Nature.

CHAPTER V

ANTE-PRANDIAL VISITORS

He looked and beheld a small maiden clad in a holland frock, with a
white linen hat on the back of her gold-brown curls, instead of being
set in orthodox fashion upon her head. Her white shoes and socks, fresh
with the morning, were a little reddened with walking through the
"Tenby" garden, which, as Pauline had borne witness, contained no grass
whatever.

Just behind her was a small boy, sitting very firmly on a little red
tricycle.

"Hello!" said Hugh; "very glad to see you, I'm sure. Friends who look
you up in the low ebb of the hours before breakfast are friends indeed.
Come along up, both of you, and tell me your names."

But Lynn stood loyal and steadfast at the foot of the steps, while she
put the first necessary and searching question that was his due.

"Have you had whooping cough?" she