re, Miss Huntress, if
you're in such a hurry, I don't mind taking Miss Quincy up and telling
her what I know about old editions and rare folios. I'll make it right
with mother afterward."

Miss Huntress' face cleared perceptibly.

"You're awfully good, Mr. Percival. Won't you come down to my office
now, and I'll introduce you to Miss Quincy? This is a real favor." Dick
shot a glance of triumph at Ellery, believing himself a skilled sly dog
of a manipulator, and not knowing that he was the manipulated. Norris
spoke in scorn.

"I suppose righteousness and reform can wait now."

"You can bet they will. I'll call on you to-morrow afternoon, Norris."

"That's the usual fate of reform. Don't be a fool, Dick." But Dick was
already disappearing down the corridor in pursuit of the able woman
editor.

The girl waiting in the disordered office looked more than ever like a
bridesmaid rose, pink and ruffled and out of its proper setting, as she
saw Mr. Percival coming.

"Miss Quincy," said Dick, "I have a motor down stairs, and I'll take you
up to the house right away, if you don't mind."

If she didn't mind!

When youth starts out to revolutionize the world, it meets with many
distractions. Even in the hour that Dick spent in the quiet old library
with Miss Quincy, he met with distractions. He tried to keep her mind on
missals and Aldine editions, but she persisted in poring over old copies
of _Godey's Lady's Book_, which she found tucked away in a forgotten
corner. Nobody but Lena could have scented them out.

"The fashions are so funny, Mr. Percival!" she insisted. "Do look at
these preposterous hoop-skirts and the little short waists. Did you say
that no one knows how that gold leaf was put on that ugly old book? How
absurd! I must put that down. I suppose that is the kind of thing I have
to write up."

"Be sure you don't get mixed up and describe monkish fichus and gold
leaf on the bias, or you'll be everlastingly disgraced in the office."

"Never mind. I'll learn your horrid old pieces of information in a few
minutes. Do let me look at this a little longer," Lena answered so
prettily, and pointed with so dainty a finger, and glanced up so
pathetically, that Dick too became absorbed in _Godey's Lady's Book_.

"Weren't they frightful guys?" Lena went on. "But I dare say the men of
that time--what is the date?--1862--thought they were lovely."

"Very likely, poor men! You see they hadn't the privilege of knowing