ust into
his fingers. He caught both the hand and the packet in a firm clasp.

"You're true blue, little girl," he breathed tremulously, "and I'm going
to keep tabs on Bert after this. I 'll _make_ him keep straight for
her--and for _you_. He's only a bit weak, after all. And you'll see me
again soon--very soon," he finished, as he crushed her hand in a grip
that hurt. Then he turned and stumbled away, as if his eyes did not see
quite clearly.

"Now, wasn't he nice?" murmured Mrs. Raymond, as the girl closed the hall
door. "And--didn't he say that he'd call again sometime?"

"Yes, mother."

"Well, I'm sure, I hope he will. He isn't Herbert, of course, but he
_knows_ Herbert."

"He--does, mother." There was a little break in Helen's voice, but Mrs.
Raymond did not notice it.

"Dearie me! Well, he's gone now, and I _am_ hungry. My dinner didn't
seem to please, somehow."

"Why, mother, it was n't--codfish; was it?"

"N-no. It was chicken. But then, like enough it _will_ be codfish
to-morrow."

Helen Raymond dreamed that night, and she dreamed of love, and youth, and
laughter. But it was not the shimmer of spangled tulle nor the chatter
of merry girls that called it forth. It was the look in a pair of
steadfast blue eyes, and the grip of a strong man's hand.

A Mushroom of Collingsville

There were three men in the hotel office that Monday evening: Jared
Parker, the proprietor; Seth Wilber, town authority on all things past
and present; and John Fletcher, known in Collingsville as "The
Squire"--possibly because of his smattering of Blackstone; probably
because of his silk hat and five-thousand-dollar bank account. Each of
the three men eyed with unabashed curiosity the stranger in the doorway.

"Good-evening, gentlemen," began a deprecatory voice. "I--er--this is
the hotel?"

In a trice Jared Parker was behind the short counter.

"Certainly, sir. Room, sir?" he said suavely, pushing an open book and
a pen halfway across the counter.

"H'm, yes, I--I suppose so," murmured the stranger, as he hesitatingly
crossed the floor. "H'm; one must sleep, you know," he added, as he
examined the point of the pen.

"Certainly, sir, certainly," agreed Jared, whose face was somewhat
twisted in his endeavors to smile on the prospective guest and frown at
the two men winking and gesticulating over by the stove.

"H'm," murmured the stranger a third time, as he signed his name with
painstaking ca