her apprehension by putting up at his club and leaving
her in undisturbed possession of his quarters. There, with
Mademoiselle still treating her as a little girl, and the other five
of her heterogeneous foster family to pet and divert her at intervals,
she soon began to feel her life swing back into a more accustomed and
normal perspective. David's attitude to her was as simple as ever, and
when she was with the devoted sextet she was almost able to forget the
matter that was at issue between them--almost but not quite.

She took quite a new kind of delight in her association with the
group. She found herself suddenly on terms of grown up equality with
them. Her consciousness of the fact that David was tacitly waiting
for her to become a woman, had made a woman of her already, and she
looked on her guardians with the eyes of a woman, even though a very
newly fledged and timorous one.

She was a trifle self-conscious with the others, but with Jimmie she
was soon on her old familiar footing.

* * * * *

"Uncle Jimmie is still a great deal of fun," she wrote in her diary.
"He does just the same old things he used to do with me, and a good
many new ones in addition. He brings me flowers, and gets me taxi-cabs
as if I were really a grown up young lady, and he pinches my nose and
teases me as if I were still the little girl that kept house in a
studio for him. I never realized before what a good-looking man he is.
I used to think that Uncle Peter was the only handsome man of the
three, but now I realize that they are all exceptionally good-looking.
Uncle David has a great deal of distinction, of course, but Uncle
Jimmie is merry and radiant and vital, and tall and athletic looking
into the bargain. The ladies on the Avenue all turn to look at him
when we go walking. He says that the gentlemen all turn to look at
me, and I think perhaps they do when I have my best clothes on, but in
my school clothes I am quite certain that nothing like that happens.

"I have been out with Uncle Jimmie Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday
and Friday,--four days of my vacation. We've been to the Hippodrome
and Chinatown, and we've dined at Sherry's, and one night we went down
to the little Italian restaurant where I had my first introduction to
_eau rougie_, and was so distressed about it. I shall never forget
that night, and I don't think Uncle Jimmie will ever be done teasing
me about it. It is ni