we couldn't afford a
better one. We're very poor, dad and I."

"Were poor. Not poor any longer, I hope."

"Oh, that well! It is exciting, isn't it? Dad has gone out there to see
it, so--Yes, I'll lunch with you and be duly grateful."

"Where shall we go?"

Barbara's brows drew together in a frown of consideration, and Gray
told himself that she was even more charming when serious than when
smiling. "Wherever we go, we'll be sorry we didn't go somewhere else.
We might try the Professor's place. He's a Greek scholar--left his
university to get rich quick in the oil fields, but failed. He started
a sandwich and pie counter--a good one--and it pays better than a
pumper. But we'd have to sit on high stools and be scowled at if we
didn't gobble our food and make room for others. Then there is Ptomaine
Tommy's. Cafes are good and bad by comparison. After you've been here a
few days you'll enjoy Tommy's."

"Then I vote for his poison palace. The very name has a thrill to it."

On their way to the restaurant, Gray said: "Pa and Ma and Allie Briskow
and the tutoress have gone to the mountains--Ma's beloved
mountains--and they appear to be living up to her expectations. The
mountains, I mean. The old dear writes me every week, and her letters
are wonderful, even outside of the spelling. She hasn't lost a single
illusion. She has a soul for adventure, has Ma; she's hunting for caves
now--keeps her ears open to hear if the ground sounds hollow; wants to
find a mysterious cavern and explore it, with her heart in her mouth.
She revels in the clean, green foliage and the spring brooks. She says
the trees are awful crowded in places and there's no dust on them."

"And Allie has a tutor!"

"The best money could secure. And, by the way, you wouldn't have known
the girl after you got through with her that day. That was only the
beginning, too. She fills the eye now, and she's growing."

"_Growing?_"

Gray chuckled. "Not physically, but mentally, psychologically,
intellectually."

"I said she had possibilities."

"Yes. More than I gave her credit for, but what they are, where they
will lead her, I don't know. I'm a foolish person, Miss Parker, for I
take an intense interest in the affairs of other people, especially my
friends. My favorite dissipation is to share the troubles of those whom
I like, and right now I'm quite as worried over Allie as her father is.
You see, she has outdistanced her parents already; the dream part