ts of the city? Winifred Ames wants you for a dinner dance
on the twentieth. Can't you turn the measley kiddies over to some one
else and come? Say 'yes,' Dicky, dear. Oh, you musn't be just a country
doctor. You were born for bigger things, and some day you will see it and
be sorry."

Richard's letter, dashed off between visits to the "measley kiddies," was
as follows:

"There aren't any bigger things, Eve, and I shan't be sorry. I can't get
away just now, and to be frank, I don't want to. There is nothing dull
about measles. They have aspects of interest unknown to a dinner dance. I
am not saying that I don't miss some of the things that I have left
behind--my good friends--you and Pip and the Dutton-Ames. But there are
compensations. And you should see my horse. He's a heavy fellow like a
horse of Flanders; I call him Ben because he is big and gentle. I don't
tie up my ears, but I should if I wanted to. And please don't think I am
ungrateful because I am not coming to the Dutton-Ames dance. Why don't
you and the rest drift down here for a week-end? Next Friday, the Friday
after? Let me know. There's good skating now that the snows have
stopped."

He signed it and sealed it and on the way to see little Peggy he dropped
it into the box. Then he entirely forgot it. It was a wonderful morning,
with a sky like sapphire above a white world, the dog Toby racing ahead
of him, and big gentle Ben at a trot.

At the innocent word "compensations" Evelyn Chesley pricked up her ears.
What compensations? She got Philip Meade on the telephone.

"Richard has asked us for the week-end, Pip. Could we go in your car?"

"Unless it snows again. But why seek such solitudes, Eve?"

"I want to take Richard a fur cap. I am sure he ties up his ears."

"Send it."

"In a cold-blooded parcel post package? I will not. Pip, if you won't go,
I'll kidnap Aunt Maude, and carry her off by train."

"And leave me out? Not much. 'Whither thou goest----'"

"Even when I am on the trail of another man? Pip, you are a dear idiot."

"The queen's fool."

So it was decided that on Friday, weather permitting, they should go.

Aunt Maude, protesting, said, "It isn't proper, Eve. Girls in my day
didn't go running around after men. They sat at home and waited."

"Why wait, dearest? When I see a good thing I go for it."

"Eve----!"

"And anyhow I am not running after Dicky. I am rescuing him."

"From what?"

"From his mother, dearest, and his o