's elusiveness and you are a mystery
perpetual. You alone can unriddle the riddle."

"I can't. I give myself up."

"Not so fast, young woman," broke in her father, shutting his magazine
and settling his glasses more firmly upon his nose; "that is an office I
alone can perform. Who has been hunting on my preserves?"

"Alas! They are not tempting, so be quite calm on that score." She sat
up with a forlorn sigh, adding, "Think of it, Father, twenty-two, and
not a heart to hang on my chatelaine."

"Hands are supposed to mean hearts nowadays," said Louis, reassuringly;
"I am sure you have mittened one or two."

"Oh, yes," she answered, laughing evasively, "both of little Toddie
Flynn's. Mamma, don't you think I am too big a baby for you to hold
long?" She sprang up, and drawing a stool before her father's chair,
exclaimed,--

"Now, Father, a grown-up Mother-Goose story for my birthday; make it
short and sweet and with a moral like you."

Mr. Levice patted her head and rumpled the loosely gathered hair.

"Once upon a time," he began, "a little boy went into his father's
warehouse and ate up all the sugar in the land. He did not die, but he
was so sweet that everybody wanted to bite him. That is short and sweet;
and what is the moral?"

"Selfishness brings misery," answered Ruth, promptly; "clever of both of
us, but what is the analogy? Louis, you look lonesome over there. I feel
as if I were masquerading; come nearer the footlights."

"And get scorched for my pains? Thanks; this is very comfortable.
Distance adds to illusion."

"You don't mean to admit you have any illusions, do you? Why, those
glasses of yours could see through a rhinoceros, I verily believe. Did
you ever see anything you did not consider a delusion and a snare?"

"Yes; there is a standing institution of whose honest value there is no
doubt."

"And that is?"

"My bed."

"After all, it is a lying institution, my friend; and are you not
deposing your masculine muse,--your cigar? Oh, that reminds me of the
annual peace-pipe."

She jumped up, snatched a candle, and left the room. As she turned
toward the staircase she was arrested by the ringing of the doorbell.
She stood quite still, holding the lighted candle while the maid opened
the door.

"Is Miss Levice in?" asked the voice that made the little candle-light
seem like myriads of swimming stars. As the maid answered in the
affirmative, she came mechanically forward and met the bright-g