not like the others, you consider something more than the outside advantages to be gained. Tell me, what would you do in my place?"

"I'd wait for the real one to come," cried Miss Lady, turning upon her almost fiercely, "I'd wait, if it was forever! They have no right to persuade you. You either love or you don't love and no power on earth can make it different. You can laugh at sentiment and pretend you don't believe in it, you can tell yourself a thousand times that you are doing the sensible thing. You can blind yourself utterly to the truth for a time. But some day you've got to realize that the only real thing in life is love, and that you are powerless to make it live or die."

After that they sat a long time in silence, until Miss Lady rose abruptly and, making some excuse, took a hurried departure. She was frightened at what she had said, at what she had thought. She was terrified at this strange, new self, that spoke out of a strange, new experience, and set at naught all her carefully acquired opinions. It was not until she reached home after a brisk walk through the crisp air, that the turmoil in her brain subsided.

On the hall table, beside a well-worn copy of Shelley, lay the Doctor's gloves and soft gray hat. She seized the gloves impulsively and laid them against her cheek.

"Dear, dear Doctor!" she whispered almost fiercely. "So good, and kind, and--and wonderful!"

Suddenly she was aware of some one watching her covertly through the crack of the dining-room door.

"Myrtella!" she cried. "Is that you?"

"Yes'm, if you please," came in strange, meek accents. "I'd like to speak with you."

It was so entirely out of the course of human events for Myrtella to assume humility, that Miss Lady looked at her in amazement.

"I can't say," began Myrtella, still half behind the door, "that I like the way things is run in this house. I'm thinkin' some of givin' notice."

"Why, Myrtella!" cried Miss Lady in dismay. "I'm afraid the work is too heavy. We might get--"

"Needn't mind finishing, Mis' Squeerington, you was goin' to say a house girl. If you think I'd share my room with any Dutch or Irish biddy, I must say you're mighty mistaken! Besides, ain't I givin' satisfaction? Ain't I doin' the work to suit you?"

"Of course you are, but I thought you--"

"Was gettin' old, I suppose, and couldn't do as much work as I used to. I look feeble, don't I?"

Miss Lady glanced at the massive figure with brawny arms akimbo, and smiled.

"Well, what's the trouble then?" she asked kindly. "Why do you want to leave?"

Myrtella's eyes shifted as she rubbed some imaginary dust from the door:

"I ain't used to working fer a lady that don't take no holt. It don't seem natural, and it leaves folks room to talk."

"But I thought you wanted to have full charge and run things just as you have done in the past."

"Well, it don't look right fer you not to be givin' me no orders, nor rowin' the grocery man, nor lightin' into nobody. If folks didn't know better they'd think you wasn't used to bein' a lady!"

Miss Lady bit her lip to keep from laughing. "I'll be only too glad to keep house, only I don't know much about it. Aunt Caroline and Uncle Jimpson did everything out home, and you've done everything here."

"Well, I ain't goin' to no longer," said Myrtella firmly. "If you want to light in and learn, I'll learn you. But I ain't going to stay except on one condition, you got to take a holt of everything! You got to lock things up and give me out what I need. You got to order all the meals and tell me what you want done every mornin'. I ain't goin' to have people throwin' it in my face that I work for a lady that don't know a skillet from a saucepan!"

"You're right, Myrtella," said Miss Lady, her face grown suddenly grave. "I don't wonder you are ashamed of me. Perhaps some good hard work will brush the cobwebs out of my brain. When shall I take charge of things, to-morrow?"

"As you say," said Myrtella meekly; then with a sudden flare, "though it does look like I might be trusted one more day to finish up the general cleaning and git after the ashman for not emptyin' them barrels."

"Friday, then?"

"Friday," said Myrtella as one who signed her own death warrant, and the young mistress gazing absently out of the window little guessed that a powerful usurper was voluntarily abdicating a throne in order that the rightful owner might come into her own.

CHAPTER XIV

The red lamps were all lighted in Mrs. Ivy's small parlor, and the disordered tea-table and general confusion of the overcrowded room, gave evidence that one of her frequent "at homes" had been brought to an end.

It might have been inferred that the hostess had also been brought to an end, to judge from her closed eyes and clasped hands, and the effort with which she inhaled her breath and the violence with which she exhaled it. The maid, clearing away the tea things, viewed her with apprehension.

"Excuse me, ma'm, but will you be havin' the hot-water bag?" she asked when she could endure the strain no longer.

Mrs. Ivy opened one reluctant eye and condescended to recall her spirit to the material world.

"Norah, how could you?" she asked plaintively. "Haven't I begged you never to disturb my meditation?"

"Yis, ma'm, but this, you might say, was worse than usual. Me mother's twin sister died of the asthmy."

"Never speak to me when you see me entering into the silence. I was denying fatigue; now I shall have to begin all over!"

It was evidently difficult for Mrs. Ivy to again tranquilize her spirit. Her eyes roved fondly about the room, resting first upon one cherished object then upon another. Autographed photographs lined the walls, autographed volumes littered the tables. Above her head two small bronze censers sent wreaths of incense curling about a vast testimonial, acknowledging her valiant service in behalf of the anti- tobacco crusade. Flanking this were badges of divers shape and size, representing societies to which she belonged. In the cabinet at her left were still more disturbing treasures such as Gerald's first pair of shoes, and the gavel that the last president of the Federated Sisterhood had used before she had, as Mrs. Ivy was fond of saying, "been called upon to hand in her resignation by the Board of Death."

Before the error of fatigue had been entirely erased from her mental state, her eyes fell upon a pamphlet, and she immediately became absorbed in its contents. It set forth the need for a Home for Crippled Animals, and by the time she reached the second page she was framing a motion to be presented to her club on the morrow. Mrs. Ivy was greatly addicted to motions; in fact, it was one of her missions in life continually to move that things should be other than they were, without in any way supplying the motive power to change them.

While thus engaged she was interrupted by a belated caller. He was a short, heavy-set young man, with a square prominent jaw, and a twinkle in his eye.

"_Mister_ Decker!" exclaimed Mrs. Ivy, swimming toward him. "After all these months in those wonderful Eastern lands! I can almost catch the odor of sandalwood about you!"

"It's dope," said Decker, with an easy laugh. "Chinese dope. I've had these clothes cleaned twice, and I can't get rid of it. Had them on one night in an opium den in Hankow. Funny how that smell stays with you."

"An opium den?" repeated Mrs. Ivy, lifting a protesting hand. "And is no effort being made to stamp out such iniquities in China? Might not some concerted action on the part of the women's clubs in all the Christian countries create a public sentiment against them?"

Decker bit his lip as he stooped to pick up the leaflet she had dropped.

"Gerald's here I suppose?"

"Of course! How thoughtless of me not to explain that I always insist upon the dear lad resting between four and five. He inherits delicate lungs from his father, and an emotional, artistic temperament from me. Then both of his maternal grandparents had heart trouble."

"Still hammers away at his music, I suppose?" Decker asked, minutely inspecting the photograph of a meek-looking female who appeared totally unable to live up to the bold, aggressive signature with which she had signed herself.

"Dear Miss Snell," Mrs. Ivy explained, "corresponding secretary of the A. T. L. A. If you had _only_ come sooner you could have met her. What were you asking? Oh, yes! about Gerald's music. Why, you could no more imagine Gerald without music, than you could think of a bird without wings. He would simply perish without a piano. When we are abroad we rent one if we are only going to be in a place ten days. His Papa can't understand this, but then Mr. Ivy is not musical, poor dear; he really doesn't know a fugue from a fantasie."