ou be
good!"

CHAPTER XXVI

A CALL IN BUCKEYE LANE

"Going out, mamma?"

"Rather think so, Phil!" replied Lois.

It was the week after the visit to the farm, and Phil, who was now
scratching away furiously on a short story, had opened her mother's door
late in the afternoon to find that lady contemplating with unusual
gravity a frock she had flung across the bed for inspection.

"What are you up to, Phil?"

"Up to my chin in ink," replied Phil, holding up a forefinger empurpled
from the ink she was affecting. She had read in a literary note that one
of the most distinguished of contemporaneous women novelists always used
purple ink. Phil was spreading a good deal of it over legal cap
purloined from her father's office. Kirkwood was just now in town, and
he had called her on the telephone to invite her to supper with him at
the Morton House, an arrangement which she disclosed to her mother.

"Your father's home again?" Lois asked indifferently.

"Yes. He has something to do here about those bonds of Charlie Holton's.
It sounded rather complicated; and he wants to see Fred, and Amy was to
call him into town."

Lois's mind was upon the gown. She compressed her lips as she continued
to scrutinize it. It was a gown from Paris and a very handsome one.
Having decided that it suited her purposes, she brought out a hat that
matched it and tossed it onto the bed.

"How do you think I'd look in those things?"

"Adorable! Shall I order up the machine?"

"Um, no: I'll walk, I think."

"I rather take it that I'm not invited," laughed Phil.

"Bless me, no! I have a call to make that wouldn't interest you."

Phil walked to the bureau--a new one of mahogany that had been among her
mother's recent substitutions for the old walnut with which the house
had been filled. The folder of a steamship company lay sprawled open
across the neatly arranged toilet articles. Phil picked it up idly, and
noted certain pencilings that caused her heart to give a sudden bound.
She flung round upon her mother with tears in her eyes.

"You are not--not thinking of that!"

Lois walked over to her and kissed her. She took Phil's face in her
hands, looking into her eyes steadily.

"You dear chick, you would care!"

"Oh, you mustn't! You must _not_!" Phil cried. "And you have been
thinking of it and not telling me! And just when I thought we understood
everything."

"I meant to tell you to-day: I really did. It wasn't easy. Bu