prised arch.

"You're the first person I ever heard say they had enough money," he
remarked.

"But I have!" she insisted gaily.

Mr. Pawling's sad horse-face regarded her with faded surprise. He
passed for a rich man in Shadow Hill.

"Where is Elmer's place of business?" he inquired finally, producing a
worn note-book and a gold pencil. And he wrote down the address.

There was in all the world only one thing that seriously worried Mr.
Pawling, and that was this worn note-book. Almost every day of his
life he concluded to burn it. He lived in a vague and daily fear that
it might be found on him if he died suddenly. Such things could
happen--automobile or railroad accidents--any one of numberless
mischances.

And still he carried it, and had carried it for years--always in a
sort of terror while the recent Mrs. Pawling was still alive--and in
dull but perpetual anxiety ever since.

There were in it pages devoted to figures. There were, also, memoranda
of stock transactions. There were many addresses, too, mostly
feminine.

Now he replaced it in the breast pocket of his frock-coat, and took
out a large wallet strapped with a rubber band.

While he was paying the check, Palla drew on her gloves; and, at the
Madison Avenue door, stood chatting with him a moment longer before
leaving for the canteen.

Then, smilingly declining his taxi and offering her slender hand in
adieu, she went westward on foot as usual. And Mr. Pawling's
directions to the chauffeur were whispered ones as though he did not
care to have the world at large share in his knowledge of his own
occult destination.

* * * * *

Palla's duty at the canteen lasted until six o'clock that afternoon,
and she hurried on her way home because people were dining there at
seven-thirty.

With the happy recollection that Jim, also, was dining with her, she
ran lightly up the steps and into the house; examined the flowers
which stood in jars of water in the pantry, called for vases, arranged
a centre-piece for the table, and carried other clusters of blossoms
into the little drawing-room, and others still upstairs.

Then she returned to criticise the table and arrange the name-cards.
And, this accomplished, she ran upstairs again to her own room, where
her maid was waiting.

Two or three times in a year--not oftener--Palla yielded to a rare
inclination which assailed her only when unusually excited and happy.
T