party,
but I don't believe I did--not altogether, anyhow. Underneath, I think
you enjoyed it." He took her small hand in his; he wondered why it was
so cold and listless.

At the door leading into the hall he paused and looked back "Oh," he
said, "there was one thing I forgot to tell you! You see, part of my
story wasn't altogether true. Mrs. Pollen--or rather, Mrs.
Mackintosh--left Mackintosh after five years or so. She's in the
movies--doing very well, I understand. She would; wouldn't she? Of
course, she was no good to begin with. But that didn't spoil the point
of my story, did it? Good-by, Rhoda, my dear." He was gone.

Mrs. Ennis did not move until she heard the street door close; she
waited even a little longer, following the sound of Burnaby's footsteps
as they died away into the night; finally she walked over to the piano,
and, sitting down, raised her hands as if to strike the keys. Instead,
she suddenly put both her arms on the little shelf before the music-rack
and buried her head in them. The curtains tip-tapped on the window-sill;
the room was entirely quiet.

DARKNESS[5]

By IRVIN S. COBB

(From _The Saturday Evening Post_)

There was a house in this town where always by night lights burned. In
one of its rooms many lights burned; in each of the other rooms at least
one light. It stood on Clay Street, on a treeless plot among flower
beds, a small dull-looking house; and when late on dark nights all the
other houses on Clay Street were black blockings lifting from the lesser
blackness of their background, the lights in this house patterned its
windows with squares of brilliancy so that it suggested a grid set on
edge before hot flames. Once a newcomer to the town, a transient guest
at Mrs. Otterbuck's boarding house, spoke about it to old Squire Jonas,
who lived next door to where the lights blazed of nights, and the answer
he got makes a fitting enough beginning for this account.

This stranger came along Clay Street one morning and Squire Jonas, who
was leaning over his gate contemplating the world as it passed in
review, nodded to him and remarked that it was a fine morning; and the
stranger was emboldened to stop and pass the time of day, as the saying
goes.

"I'm here going over the books of the Bernheimer Distilling Company," he
said when they had spoken of this and that, "and you know, when a
chartered accountant gets on a job he's supposed to keep right at it
until he's done. We