erstand anything about
business." And Mrs. Mavick smiled graciously.

"No, it is not about the office. I should not think of troubling my
friends in that way. It is just that--"

"Oh, I see," Mrs. Mavick interrupted, with good-humor, "it's about the
novel. I hear that it has sold very well. And you are not certain
whether its success will warrant your giving up your clerkship. Now as
for me," and she leaned back in her chair, with the air of weighing the
chances in her mind, "it doesn't seem to me that a writer--"

"No, it is not that," said Philip, leaning forward and looking her full
in the face with all the courage he could summon, "it is your daughter."

"What!" cried Mrs. Mavick, in a tone of incredulous surprise.

"I was afraid you would think me very presumptuous."

"Presumptuous! Why, she is a child. Do you know what you are talking
about?"

"My mother married at eighteen," said Philip, gently.

"That is an interesting piece of information, but I don't see its
bearing. Will you tell me, Mr. Burnett, what nonsense you have got into
your head?"

"I want," and Philip spoke very gently--"I want, Mrs. Mavick, permission
to see your daughter."

"Ah! I thought in Rivervale, Mr. Burnett, that you were a gentleman.
You presume upon my invitation to this house, in an underhand way,
to--What right have you?"

Mrs. Mavick was so beside herself that she could hardly speak. The lines
in her face deepened into wrinkles and scowls. There was something
malevolent and mean in it. Philip was astonished at the transformation.
And she looked old and ugly in her passion.

"You!" she repeated.

"It is only this, Mrs. Mavick," and Philip spoke calmly, though his blood
was boiling at her insulting manner--"it is only this--I love your
daughter."

"And you have told her this?"

"No, never, never a word."

"Does she know anything of this absurd, this silly attempt?"

"I am afraid not."

"Ah! Then you have spared yourself one humiliation. My daughter's
affections are not likely to be placed where her parents do not approve.
Her mother is her only confidante. I can tell you, Mr. Burnett, and when
you are over this delusion you will thank me for being so plain with you,
my daughter would laugh at the idea of such a proposal. But I will not
have her annoyed by impecunious aspirants."

"Madam!" cried Philip, rising, with a flushed face, and then he
remembered that he was talking to Evelyn's mother, and uttered no other