“He tried to be shy with me,” said Mrs. Phillips, “but I wouldn’t let him. I chipped him out of it. If he’s going to write plays, as I told him, he will have to get over his fear of a petticoat.” “But I’ve won,” she said. “I’m dying further forward. I’ve helped advance the line.”!

The girl rose. “I must be getting back,” she said. “Dad will be wondering where I’ve got to.” He was reading a letter. “You were dining there on Friday night, weren’t you?” he asked her, without looking up.

He did not answer for some time. She had begun to wonder if he had heard. “Because you won’t be there,” he answered, “and without you I can’t do it. You think I’m always like I am to-night, bragging, confident. So I am when you are with me. You give me back my strength. The plans and hopes and dreams that were slipping from me come crowding round me, laughing and holding out their hands. They are like the children. They need two to care for them. I want to talk about them to someone who understands them and loves them, as I do. I want to feel they are dear to someone else, as well as to myself: that I must work for them for her sake, as well as for my own. I want someone to help me to bring them up.” “The Cyril Baptiste?” she asked. She had often wondered what he might be like.