signature.

"Wayland Brown Bayless, LL.D., on 'Sunshine and Shadow.' He was giving
that same lecture here when I was a girl; it ought to be well mellowed
by this time. Either the president of the college or the pastor of
Center Church will present him to the audience and the white pitcher of
Sugar Creek water that is always provided. Well, it's a perfectly good
lecture, and old enough to be respectable: Smiles and sobs stuck in at
regular intervals. I approve of the lecture, Phil. I'd almost make Amzi
take me, just to see how Bayless, LL.D., looks after all these years.
Away back there when I heard him he looked so old I thought he must have
been a baby playing in the sand when they carved the Sphinx."

She returned the note to Phil and her eyes reverted to the book.

"What about it, mamma?"

"Oh, about going! Let me see. This is the other Holton boy, so to
speak--the provider of American Beauties, as distinguished from the
dispenser of quails?"

Phil confirmed this.

"It's Charlie. He's taken me to parties several times. I rather think
this note is a feeler. He doesn't know whether he ought to come
here--now--" and Phil ended, with the doubt she attributed to Charles
Holton manifest in her own uncertainty.

"We went over that the other day, Phil. As those wise aunts of yours
introduced you to this person, I shouldn't suggest that you drop his
acquaintance on my account. You see"--she raised herself slightly to
punch a more comfortable hollow in the pillows--"you see that would
merely stir up strife, which is highly undesirable. If you think you can
survive Bayless, LL.D.'s, plea for optimism, accept the gentleman's
invitation. There's only this--you yourself might be a little
uncomfortable, for reasons we needn't mention; you'll have to think of
that. I suppose chaperons didn't reach Montgomery with the electric
light; girls run around with young men just as they used to."

"I don't care what people say, so far as that is concerned," replied
Phil. "Charlie has been kind to me--and the lecture is the only thing
that offers just now."

Lois laughed.

"Then, go!"

"And besides, just now people are talking about the Sycamore Company and
father's connection with it, and I shouldn't want Charlie to feel that I
thought he wasn't all straight about that; for I don't suppose he did
anything wrong. He doesn't seem like that."

Lois reached for a pot of cold cream and applied the ointment to her
lips with the tip