d led him away, in the
direction of the hairbrush, if one would judge by Buddy's reluctance to
go.

"So you are going to climb the--Big Hill, are you?" Miss Josephine
observed, when the two were quite alone. "It is to be hoped, Mr.
Campbell, that you won't find it as steep as it looks--from the bottom."

Ford was not an adept at reading what lies underneath the speech of a
woman. To himself he accented the last three words, so that they
overshadowed all the rest and made her appear to remind him where he
stood--at the bottom.

"I suppose a hollow does look pretty high, to a man down a well," he
retorted, glancing into his teacup because he felt and was resisting an
impulse to look at her.

"One can always keep climbing," she murmured, "and never give up--" Miss
Josephine, also, was tilting her teacup and looking studiously into it
as if she would read her fortune in the specks of tea leaves there.

"Like the frog in the well--that climbed one jump and fell back two!" he
interrupted, but she paid no attention, and went on.

"And the reward for reaching the top--"

"Is there supposed to be a reward?" Ford could not tell why he asked
her that, nor why he glanced stealthily at her from under his eyebrows
as he awaited her reply.

"There--might--there usually is a reward for any great
achievement--and--" Miss Josephine was plainly floundering where she had
hoped to float airily upon the surface.

"What's the reward for--climbing hills, for instance?" He looked at her
full, now, and his lips were ready to smile.

Miss Josephine looked uneasily at the door. "I--really, I
never--investigated the matter at all." She gave a twitch of shoulders
and met his eyes steadily. "The inner satisfaction of having climbed the
hill, I suppose," she said, in the tone of one who has at last reached
firm ground. "Will you have more tea, Mr. Campbell?"

Her final words were chilly and impersonal, but Ford left the table,
smiling to himself. At the door he met Dick, whom Buddy had mentioned
with disaster to himself. Dick saw the smile, and within the room he saw
Miss Josephine sitting alone, her chin resting in her two palms and her
eyes fixed upon vacancy.

"Hello," Ford greeted somewhat inattentively. "Do you want me for
anything, Dick?"

"Can't say I do," drawled Dick, brushing past Ford in the doorway.

Ford hesitated long enough to give him a second glance--an attentive
enough glance this time--and went his way; without the