s, I guess, perhaps, I have been inclined to stand too much aloof.
That little Mrs. Anderson is really a cultured woman. She comes from
Maine. I asked her to come and spend the day Tuesday."

Marian's comment was brief.

"Frank, I am dead, but I'm glad we did it."

"So am I--put out the light." Frank was already half asleep.

CHAPTER XIX

SHERM HEARS BAD NEWS

"Sherm, don't you just love this room?" Chicken Little gazed about
Captain Clarke's big library with a real affection. "I don't know why it
is, but this room makes me feel the same way a sunset, or the prairie
when it's all in bloom, does. I can't just tell you, but it makes me so
satisfied with everything ... as if the world was so beautiful it
couldn't possibly be very bad."

"I know--it's the harmony, like in music. The colors all seem to go
together ... everything seems to belong. I like that, too, but it
doesn't mean just that, to me. I see the Captain every time I step in
here. It's a part of him--almost as if he had worked his own bigness and
the kind of things he loves, into furniture and books and--fixings."

"Yes, there's so much room to breathe here--I s'pose being at sea so
much, he had to have that. And he picked up most of these things on his
voyages--he must have wanted them pretty bad or he wouldn't have carried
them half around the world with him."

The young people had come over to the Captain's for supper. School had
closed the day before, and Chicken Little was the proud possessor of an
elaborate autograph album, won as a spelling prize. Captain Clarke had
attended the closing exercises at her request. He had invited them over
to celebrate, this evening. He declared he had never learned to spell
himself and he wanted the honor of entertaining some one who knew how.

Chicken Little had brought the album along for the Captain's signature.
"And write something, too, won't you? Something specially for me," she
had begged winningly.

"Have they all written something--specially for you, Chicken Little? I
should like to read them."

"I haven't asked very many people yet, just Mr. Clay and Grant Stowe and
Mamie Jenkins' little sister--Mamie's in town you know. I asked Sherm,
but he hasn't thought up anything."

The Captain glanced at Sherm and smiled whimsically. "Now, if I were as
young as Sherm, I shouldn't have to think up things--the trouble would
be to restrain my eloquence."

Sherm grinned and looked uncomfortable.

The