ge."

"Your father was often lonely?"

"Yes. After mother's death. And he worked too hard, and things went
wrong with his business. I used to slip up to his bedroom sometimes in
the last days, and there he'd be with the old Bible on his knee, and
mother's picture in his hand." Mary's eyes were wet.

"He loved your mother and missed her."

"It was more than that. He was afraid of the future for Constance and
me. He was afraid of the future for--Barry----"

Susan Jenks, carrying a mahogany tray on which was a slender silver
coffee-pot flanked by a dish of cheese and toasted biscuit, asked as
she went through the room: "Shall I save any dinner for Mr. Barry?"

"He'll be here," Mary said. "Porter Bigelow is taking us to the
theater, and Barry's to make the fourth."

Barry was often late, but to-night it was half-past seven when he came
rushing in.

"I don't want anything to eat," he said, stopping at the door of the
dining-room where Mary and Aunt Isabelle still waited. "I had tea
down-town with General Dick and Leila's crowd. And we danced. There
was a girl from New York, and she was a little queen."

Mary smiled at him. To Aunt Isabella's quick eyes it seemed to be a
smile of relief. "Oh, then you were with the General and Leila," she
said.

"Yes. Where did you think I was?"

"Nowhere," flushing.

He started up-stairs and then came back. "I wish you'd give me credit
for being able to keep a promise, Mary. You know what I told Con----"

"It wasn't that I didn't believe----" Mary crossed the dining-room and
stood in the door.

"Yes, it was. You thought I was with the old crowd. I might as well
go with them as to have you always thinking it."

"I'm not always thinking it."

"Yes, you are, too," hotly.

"Barry--please----"

He stood uneasily at the foot of the stairs. "You can't understand how
I feel. If you were a boy----"

She caught him up. "If I were a boy? Barry, if I were a boy I'd make
the world move. Oh, you | men, you have things all your own way, and
you let it stand still----"

She had raised her voice, and her words floating up and up reached the
ears of Roger Poole, who appeared at the top of the stairway.

There was a moment's startled silence, then Mary spoke.

"Barry, it is Mr. Poole. You don't know each other, do you?"

The two men, one going up the stairway, the other coming down, met and
shook hands. Then Barry muttered something about having to run awa