me
pesky assignment, and you were just a wee bit late. And we had a sort
of a tiff about it until I happened to look up at the picture over the
table, and 'The Girl with the Laughing Eyes' was looking straight down
at us? And then, somehow, I had to laugh, too, and we made up. Don't
you remember?"

Phil nodded. Did he not remember everything? Had he not _been_
remembering ever since? That was the pity of it all!

"We were pretty happy that night, weren't we, Phil?"

"Don't, Nance." Phil's bright eyes had a curious, unusual brightness
at that moment.

"And I made you--simply _made_ you, you didn't want to--get me one of
those foolish little pitchers." She pursued her theme relentlessly.
"The waiter was so funny!" Nancy laughed merrily as at some droll
recollection, "Phil, that was a whole year ago."

"Nonsense!" said Phil, indignantly. "It's ten years ago, if it's a
day! Before you grew to be a worldly-wise old lady, and before I had
become a cynical old man."

"You don't look very old, Phil."

"Well, I am; I'm as old as the hills. Do you know it has all been an
awful pity, Nance?"

"What?" she asked, very softly, smiling adorably.

"Oh, everything----" He stopped short, the smile had escaped him.
"Come," he said, abruptly, "let's talk about the weather,
the--the--what a terrible winter it has been, hasn't it? Did you have
lots of skating up in the country?"

"Yes, lots--about two months too much of it, and it has been the worst
winter I ever hope to live through; but really, Phil, I didn't come to
New York to talk about the weather." The laughter died out of Nancy's
blue eyes. "I--I think I came to New York to ask your advice about
something."

"My advice?" echoed Phil, wonderingly.

"Yes, I _think_ so. Phil, suppose there, was a girl whose father had
lost all his money and then had gone to work and died, and had left
her and her mother just this side of the poorhouse. And suppose she
and her mother had had to pinch and scrimp to keep their heads above
the water, until they were sick of the whole business. And suppose a
man with shoals of money--a fat, sort of elderly man, who wore diamond
rings, and said 'you was,' and did lots of other things you and I
don't like, yet was very kind and good--suppose this man wanted to
marry this girl. Now, what would you advise her to do, if her mother
were secretly crazy to have her marry him?"

"And she didn't care for anyone else?" Philip's tone was coldly
judici