t with all the eloquence of which he was master, his
finger on the page in the dictionary where it was to be found in good
and regular standing.

It really did not matter what you called it; the point was, that in an
argument with her aunt, Margaret Elizabeth had gone further than she
intended; had said what had better have been left unsaid. This she
confessed to Dr. Prue.

"Let me see your tongue," commanded that professional lady, regarding
her searchingly.

Margaret Elizabeth displayed the unruly member, laughing as she did so.

"What did you say to Mrs. Pennington?"

"We were speaking," Margaret Elizabeth answered meekly, "of gratitude,
and Aunt Eleanor said, as you are always hearing people say, that there
is little or none of it in the world. You see, in some matter which came
up in the Colonial Dames, Nancy Lane sided against her. 'And after all
I've done for her!' cried Aunt Eleanor. I said I thought gratitude was
an overrated virtue anyway, and that to expect a person to vote your way
because you had been good to her, was a kind of graft."

"Humph!" said Dr. Prue.

"I know it was a dreadful, dreadful thing to say." Tears were in
Margaret Elizabeth's eyes. "When she has been loveliness itself to me.
There it is, you see. I have thought about it, and thought about it,
until I'm all mixed up."

"What did your aunt say?"

"She was very dignified. She had not expected to hear such a thing from
me. Then she walked away."

"I hope you asked her pardon."

"I had no chance. She has gone to Chicago--was on her way to the station
then. I will, of course."

"For a young thing your ideas are not bad, though your problem is
entangled in foolish convention, personal pride and so on. But neither
you nor I was born to set the world right. Now cheer up and think no
more about it for the present. Be ready at two o'clock to go to the park
with me. The superintendent's child is ill again."

Having delivered her prescription, Dr. Prue left, and her patient
returned to her hearth-stone and an endeavour to be honest with
herself. Virginia had interrupted this most difficult process with her
fairy-tale. While it could not be said to bear upon the situation, after
she had left Margaret Elizabeth was conscious of a faint lightening of
the fog.

As they sped smoothly toward the park, in the new electric, Margaret
Elizabeth driving, Dr. Prue exclaimed, "There, I'm forgetting that
letter again." Unfastening her bag she he