arm words of welcome on their
lips. Among them was Sam Hardy.

"He is very nice. (But you mustn't think _anything_ of that. Every
man I see makes me glad I married my David.) He has a gorgeous new
machine and takes us all out. He gets his clothes made in New York
now. Such good times as we're having!" And down in one corner of the
last page was, "If only you were here!"

"P. S.," popped into his mind. But very sternly he drove it out,
calling himself hard names. Ought he not be glad that Shirley was
having a good time?

"I _am_ glad. Poor dear! It's going to be very hard for her if things
don't get better soon. You see," he explained to himself, "in some
things Shirley hasn't quite grown up yet, just as Maizie said, and good
times mean so much to her."

He sat down and wrote her the cheeriest letter he could compose.

He himself felt old enough to interest an antiquarian. Before Shirley
came back he felt older, with nothing to do but sit idly in his office,
figuring his bank balance for the thousandth time or working over some
of his old sketches, jumping nervously every time the door opened.
(But the visitor always turned out to be some one who wanted to sigh
and groan in company over the hard times.) Of evenings in the
apartment, which grew dustier and lonelier every day, he would write
his letter to Shirley, mail it and then get out his easel. Frowning
with determination, he would put and keep his mind firmly on a new idea
for a Norman Gothic cathedral, until, about midnight, worry and
loneliness would steal away and leave him with the swiftly growing
sketch.

Shirley's visit ended at last. David was pacing up and down the
platform a full hour before her train was due. In the street-car that
evening people smiled kindly at the pretty little family group--the
gravely smiling young man who held the baby so awkwardly, the pretty
wife bubbling over with joy in the reunion and with accounts of the
good times she had been having.

Afterward, when Davy Junior had had his bottle and closed his eyes,
Shirley dusted off one chair and they sat down in it.

"Now tell me about yourself and business and everything."

So, finding it harder than he had thought it could be, he told her of
the panic and what it meant to them. She listened with a pretty air of
taking it all in and making ready to meet the situation.

When his account was ended, she pushed herself back to look into his
eyes.

"David, whe