ll I'm sorry our
little girl has uncovered the clay feet of her idol. She's through
with Albertina for good."

"Do you know, Gertrude," Jimmy said, as they set foot on the
glimmering beach, "you don't seem a bit natural lately. You used to be
so full of the everlasting mischief. Every time you opened your mouth
I dodged for fear of being spiked. Yet here you are just as docile as
other folks."

"Don't you like me--as well?" Gertrude tried her best to make her
voice sound as usual.

"Better," Jimmie swore promptly; then he added a qualifying--"I
guess."

"Don't you know?" But she didn't allow him the opportunity to answer.
"I'm in a transition period, Jimmie," she said. "I meant to be such a
good parent to Eleanor and correct all the evil ways into which she
has fallen as a result of all her other injudicious training, and,
instead of that, I'm doing nothing but think of myself and my own
hankerings and yearnings and such. I thought I could do so much for
the child."

"That's the way we all think till we tackle her and then we find it
quite otherwise and even more so. Tell me about your hankerings and
yearnings."

"Tell me about your job, Jimmie."

And for a little while they found themselves on safe and familiar
ground again. Jimmie's new position was a very satisfactory one. He
found himself associated with men of solidity and discernment, and for
the first time in his business career he felt himself appreciated and
stimulated by that appreciation to do his not inconsiderable best.
Gertrude was the one woman--Eleanor had not yet attained the inches
for that classification--to whom he ever talked business.

"Now, at last, I feel that I've got my feet on the earth, Gertrude; as
if the stuff that was in me had a chance to show itself, and you don't
know what a good feeling that is after you've been marked trash by
your family and thrown into the dust heap."

"I'm awfully glad, Jimmie."

"I know you are, 'Trude. You're an awfully good pal. It isn't
everybody I'd talk to like this. Let's sit down."

The moonlight beat down upon them in floods of sentient palpitating
glory. Little breathy waves sought the shore and whispered to it. The
pines on the breast of the bank stirred softly and tenderly.

"Lord, what a night," Jimmie said, and began burying her little white
hand in the beach sand. His breath was not coming quite evenly. "Now
tell me about your job," he said.

"I don't think I want to talk about my