trictly feminine curiosity filled her soul to know something of the
nature of that work which demanded so stern a noiselessness. Observing
rigorously the printed Rule of the Dining-Room, she could not forbear to
pilfer glance after glance at the promulgator of it. Mr. Queed was
writing, not reading, to-night. He wrote very slowly on half-size yellow
pads, worth seventy-five cents a dozen, using the books only for
reference. Now he tore off a sheet only partly filled with his small
handwriting, and at the head of a new sheet inscribed a Roman numeral,
with a single word under that. Like her cousin Sharlee at an earlier
date, Fifi experienced a desire to study out, upside down, what this
heading was. Several peeks were needed, with artful attention to algebra
between whiles, before she was at last convinced that she had it.
Undoubtedly it was

XVIII

ALTRUISM

There was nothing enormous about Fifi's vocabulary, but she well knew
what to do in a case like this. Behind her stood a battered little
walnut bookcase, containing the Paynter library. After a safe interval
of absorption in her sums, she pushed back her chair with the most
respectful quietude and pulled out a tall volume. The pages of it she
turned with blank studious face but considerable inner expectancy:
Af--Ai--Al--Alf....

A giggle shattered the academic calm, and Fifi, in horror, realized that
she was the author of it. She looked up quickly, and her worst fears
were realized. Mr. Queed was staring at her, as one scarcely able to
credit his own senses, icy rebuke piercing through and overflowing his
great round spectacles.

"I beg your pardon!--Mr. Queed. It--it slipped out, really--"

But the young man thought that the time had come when this question of
noise in his dining-room must be settled once and for all.

"Indeed? Be kind enough to explain the occasion of it."

"Why," said Fifi, too truthful to prevaricate and completely cowed,
"it--it was only the meaning of a word here. It--was silly of me. I--I
can't explain it--exactly--"

"Suppose you try. Since your merriment interrupts my work, I claim the
privilege of sharing it."

"Well! I--I--happened to see that word at the head of the page you are
writing--"

"Proceed."

"I--I looked it up in the dictionary. It _says_," she read out with a
gulp and a cough, "it means 'self-sacrificing devotion to the interests
of others.'"

The poor child thought her point must now be indelicate