what you can do. By
the way, you must boil the slang out of your system. It's charming, but
it won't do. First thing you know it will be slipping in to your ink-pot
and corrupting your manuscripts. You know better; I don't! As you go on
Nan Bartlett can probably save you a good many bumps: she's a clever
woman. I read her book twice, and I can point out everything your father
put into that tale. There's not much of him there; only one of his dry
jokes now and then. Don't imitate anybody; write about things you see
and feel. One reason I'm not going to take you away with me is the
danger of spoiling your American point of view. Two years from now you
can go over and have a look; we'll see to that; but meanwhile make
yourself into a blotter that soaks up everything. I once met a literary
critic who said that the only American literature that's worth anything
or is ever going to be worth anything will be dug right out of the soil.
I didn't know then that I had a little digger in my own family! No; the
other gloves; and get me the pink parasol--the one with the white
handle."

She was deftly thrusting the pins through her hat before the oval mirror
which had been one of her acquisitions. As she drew on the gloves she
turned her supple body to make sure of the satisfactory hang of her
skirt. Her good spirits had returned, and she hummed softly as Phil
surveyed her. She seemed less indifferent to-day to Phil's admiration.
Phil's spirits rose slowly; it was difficult to mourn in this radiant
presence.

Lois had exercised all her arts in preparing for this mysterious call.
She looked astonishingly well!--and amazingly young! Dressing had always
been to Phil one of the nuisances and troubles of life. Her aunts had so
annoyed her by their fussiness, and their efforts at self-embellishment
had so disgusted her that it had been a revelation to find her mother
making herself into charming pictures with so few strokes and so blithe
an indifference to results.

Phil watched Lois to the gate, delighting in her easy, graceful step;
following the pink dot of the parasol as it was lost and found again
through the greenery. Lois sauntered toward the college and Phil turned
into the house, speculating as to her destination. Her mother's general
spontaneousness and inadvertence had led Phil to the belief that Lois
withheld nothing; it was inconsonant with her understanding of Lois that
there should be any recesses where the sun did not st