hings have been lively for a week or more. The pup has romped around a
good deal and has playfully bitten a client or two, but the Judge has
been highly edified until to-day. Fido got an important legal document
which the Judge had just drafted, and literally chewed it to pulp. Then
he swallowed it, apparently with great relish. I was told to make
another, and my not knowing about it, and taking the liberty of asking a
few necessary questions, produced the fireworks. It wasn't Fido's fault,
but mine."

"How is Fido?" queried Barbara, with affected anxiety.

"He was well at last accounts, but the document was long enough and
complicated enough to make him very ill. I hope he'll die of it
to-morrow."

"Perhaps he's going to study law, too," remarked Barbara, "and believes,
with Macaulay, that 'a page digested is better than a book hurriedly
read.'"

"I think that will do, Miss North. I'll read to you now, if you don't
mind. I would fain improve myself instead of listening to such childish
chatter."

"Perhaps, if you read to me enough, I'll improve so that even you will
enjoy talking to me," she returned, with a mischievous smile. "What did
you bring over?"

[Sidenote: A New Book]

"A new book--that is, one that we've never seen before. There is a large
box of father's books behind some trunks in the attic, and I never found
them until Sunday, when I was rummaging around up there. I haven't read
them--I thought I'd make a list of them first, and you can choose those
you'd like to have me read to you. I brought this little one because
I was sure you'd like it, after reading _Endymion_ and _The Eve of St.
Agnes_."

"What is it?"

"Keats's letters to Fanny Brawne."

The little brown book was old and its corners were dog-eared, but the
yellowed pages, with their record of a deathless passion, were still
warmly human and alive. Roger had a deep, pleasant voice, and he read
well. Quite apart from the beauty of the letters, it gave Barbara
pleasure to sit in the firelight and watch his face.

[Sidenote: A Folded Paper]

He read steadily, pausing now and then for comment, until he was
half-way through the volume; then, as he turned a page, a folded paper
fell out. He picked it up curiously.

"Why, Barbara," he said, in astonishment. "It's my father's writing."

"What is it--notes?"

"No, he seems to have been trying to write a letter like those in the
book. It is all in pencil, with changes and erasures here a