houses since King George the Third's day, and
then you will forgive us for some of our ready-made prejudices."

Kathryn glanced up suspiciously. Then she sought to flay her guest with
all discretion.

"Really? How very tiresome you must have found it!" she made answer.

"Not at all. It's the other thing that we find so tiresome," Olive
assured her, not without some malice.

"Where did you see Mr. Brenton?" Kathryn asked her quite abruptly.

"He was going to call on Mr. Opdyke."

"Reed, or the professor?"

This time, Olive's accent was not to be mistaken.

"Mr. Reed Opdyke," she said.

Kathryn ignored the rebuke completely.

"How is Reed?" she queried.

Then Olive gave it up, and left her to her chosen methods.

"About the same."

"Isn't there anything I can do for him yet?" Kathryn inquired, with an
abrupt letting down of her terse dignity. "It does seem a shame I can't
do something to help the poor fellow along, especially when it is so
many years that I have known him. It's not as if he were a mere
acquaintance, of course, and I want him to feel quite at liberty to
send for me, whenever he wants me."

"I am sure he does, Mrs. Brenton," Olive assured her, with gentle
malice, for not in vain was "the poor fellow" phrase rankling in her
mind.

"Then why in the world doesn't he send?" Kathryn asked rather
injudiciously.

Olive dodged the only direct answer she could have made.

"Perhaps he shrinks a little--" she was starting.

Kathryn, still regardless of the waggling little tail, shook her head
in vehement negation.

"Oh, he wouldn't be shy with me, Miss Keltridge. Remember, I'm quite an
old married woman now; there's no reason he should feel at
all--Besides, he sees you," she added, her voice sharpening with the
sudden recollection.

Olive laughed.

"Me? Oh, I'm totally amorphous, Mrs. Brenton, a mere lump of old
associations. It's good for Mr. Opdyke to have somebody to giggle with
occasionally."

Kathryn's voice betrayed her dislike of the flippant answer.

"Poor dear man! I guess he doesn't giggle very often. Really, Miss
Keltridge, I sometimes wonder if you realize how very sad it is."

"Very likely not," Olive said dryly.

"No; that's what I say. You see him so often that you get used to it.
It is so easy to take such things as a matter of course."

"You think so?" The dryness was increasing. "It never had occurred to
me to feel like that."

"No?" Then all at once Kathryn dropp