ou. I will overlook all those scandalous things you did
in New York. I can and will close my eyes to the wicked life you led
there. I won't even ask their names--and that's more than most women
would promise! I won't----"

"I can't do it," he repeated two or three times in rapid succession.

"Think it over, Harvey dear," said she, impressively.

"I'll buy a half interest if you'll let me, but I'll be doggoned if
I'll marry a stepmother for Phoebe, not for the whole shebang!"

"Stepmother!" she repeated, shrilly. "I don't intend to be a
stepmother!"

"Maybe I meant grandmother," he stammered in confusion. "I'm so
rattled."

"Nellie has got Phoebe. She's not yours any longer. How can I be her
stepmother? Answer that."

"You can't," said he, much too promptly.

"Well, promise me one thing, Harvey dear," she pleaded; "promise me
you'll take a month or two to think it over. We couldn't be married
for a year, in any event, so what's the sense of being in such a hurry
to settle the matter definitely?"

Harvey reflected. He found himself in a very peculiar predicament. He
had gone to her house with the avowed intention of offering her three
thousand dollars and the studio in exchange for a half interest in the
drug store. Now his long cherished dream seemed to be turning into a
nightmare.

"I will think it over," he said, at last, in secret desperation. "But
can't you give me a year's option?"

"On me?"

"On the store."

"Well, am I not the store?"

"No ma'am," said he, hastily. "I can't look at you in that light. I
can't think of you as a drug store."

"I am sure I would make you a good and loving wife, Harvey. If Davis
were alive he could tell you how devoted I was to him in all
the----"

"But that's just the trouble, he isn't alive!" cried poor Harvey, at
his wits' end. "Give me eight months."

"In the meantime you will up and marry some one else. Half the girls
in town are crazy--no, I won't say that," she made haste to interrupt
herself, suddenly realising the tactlessness of the remark. "Come up
to dinner next Sunday and we will talk it over again. It is the best
drug store in Blakeville, Harvey; remember that."

"I will remember it," he said, blankly, and took his departure.

As he passed Simpson's book store he dashed in and bought a New York
dramatic paper. Hurriedly looking through the route list of companies,
he found that the "Up in the Air" company was playing that week in
Philadelphia. W