tion."

"Will she try to get more of the kind of thing she was doing for Mrs.
Westangle at once? Or has she some people?"

"No; only friends, as I understand."

"Where is she from? Up country?"

"No, she's from the South."

"I don't like Southerners!"

"I know you don't, mother. But you must honor the way they work and get
on when they come North and begin doing for themselves. Besides, Miss
Shirley's family went South after the war--"

"Oh, not even a REAL Southerner!"

"Mother!"

"I know! I'm not fair. I ought to beg her pardon. And I ought to be glad
it's all over. Shall you see her again?"

"It might happen. But I don't know how or when. We parted friends,
but we parted strangers, so far as any prevision of the future is
concerned," Verrian said.

His mother drew a long breath, which she tried to render inaudible. "And
the girl that asked her the strange questions, did you see her again?"

"Oh yes. She had a curious fascination. I should like to tell you about
her. Do you think there's such a thing as a girl's being too innocent?"

"It isn't so common as not being innocent enough."

"But it's more difficult?"

"I hope you'll never find it so, my son," Mrs. Verrian said. And for the
first time she was intentionally personal. "Go on."

"About Miss Andrews?"

"Whichever you please."

"She waylaid me in the afternoon, as I was coming home from a walk, and
wanted to talk with me about Miss Shirley."

"I suppose Miss Shirley was the day's heroine after what had happened?"

"The half-day's, or quarter-day's heroine, perhaps. She left on the
church train for town yesterday morning soon after I saw her. Miss
Andrews seemed to think I was an authority on the subject, and she
approached me with a large-eyed awe that was very amusing, though it was
affecting, too. I suppose that girls must have many worships for
other girls before they have any worship for a man. This girl couldn't
separate Miss Shirley, on the lookout for another engagement, from the
psychical part she had played. She raved about her; she thought she was
beautiful, and she wanted to know all about her and how she could help
her. Miss Andrews's parents are rich but respectable, I understand, and
she's an only child. I came in for a share of her awe; she had found
out that I was not only not Verrian the actor, but an author of the same
name, and she had read my story with passionate interest, but apparently
in that unliterary way of man