off the bat!"

"Certainly, I do," she replied, laughing.

"Oh, see here, I have an engagement. We're one, you know, and when it
comes to authorship, you're the one."

"Hush," returned Julia, "you're disturbing father's muse."

But Mr. Evringham's ideas, whatever they were, seemed to be at hand. He
settled back in his chair, his elbows on the arms and his finger-tips
touching. All his audience immediately gave attention. Even Anna Belle had
a chair all to herself and fixed an inspiring gaze on the broker. It was to
be hoped that her pride kept her cool, for, in spite of the quiet warmth of
the September evening, she was enveloped in her new furs, with her hands
tucked luxuriously in the large muff.

"Once upon a time," began Mr. Evringham, "there was an old man. No one had
ever told him that it was error to grow old and infirm, and he sometimes
felt about ninety, although he was rather younger. He lived in the Valley
of Vain Regret. The climate of that region has a bad effect on the heart,
and his had shriveled up until it was quite small and mean, and hard and
cold, at that.

"The old man wasn't poor; he lived in a splendid castle and had plenty of
servants to wait on him; but he was the loneliest of creatures. He wanted
to be lonely. He didn't like anybody, and all he asked of people was that
they stay away from him and only speak to him when he spoke to them, which
wasn't very often, I assure you. You can easily see that people were
willing to stay away from a cross-grained person like that. Everybody in
the neighborhood was afraid of him. They shivered when he came near, and
ran off to get into the sunshine; so he was used to seeing visitors pass
by the fine grounds of his castle with only a scared glance or two in that
direction, and he wished it to be so. But he was very unhappy all the same.
His dried-up heart gave him much discomfort, and then once he had read an
old parchment that told of a far different land from Vain Regret. In that
country was the Castle of True Delight, and many an hour the man spent in
restless longing to know how he might find it; for--so he read--if a person
could once pass within the portals of that palace, he would never again
know sorrow or discontent, but one happy day would follow another in
endless variety and satisfaction.

"Many a time the man mounted on a spirited horse and rode forth in search
of this castle, and many different paths he took; but every night he came
home