ything on the bright side; youth and talent can only imagine that
the best will last for ever. Decidedly, before his money gave out he
would have found some suitable employment.

With the summons for supper he flung on his coat, plunged downstairs and
into the dining-room, and shone upon his hostesses over their tea and
preserves. The new boarder chatted and planned and listened, jovial and
kindly, his soul's good-fellowship and sweet temper shedding a radiance
in the chill little room. Miss Eulalie Whitcomb was in the sixties, and
she fell in love with Antony in a motherly way. Miss Mitty was fifteen
years her junior, and she fell in love with Antony as a woman might.
Fairfax never knew the poignant ache he caused in that heart, virginal
only, cold only because of the prolonged winter of her maidenhood.

That night he heard his aunt's praises sung, and listened, going back
with a pang to the picture the family group had made before his
home-loving eyes.

Such a marvellous woman, Mr. Fairfax (she must call him Antony if he was
to live with them. Miss Mitty couldn't. She must. Well, Mr. Antony
then), such a brilliant and executive woman. Mrs. Carew had founded the
Women's Exchange for the work of indigent ladies, such a dignified,
needed charity.

Miss Mitty knew a little old lady who made fifteen hundred dollars in
rag dolls alone.

"Dear me," said Fairfax, "couldn't you pass me off for a niece, Miss
Whitcomb? I can make clay figures that will beat rag dolls to bits."

Fifteen hundred dollars! He mused on his aunt's charity.

"And another," murmured Miss Eulalie, "another friend of ours made
altogether ten thousand dollars in chicken pies."

"Ah," exclaimed the lodger, "that's even easier to believe. And does my
uncle Carew make pies or dolls?"

"He is a pillar of the Church," said his hostess gravely, "a very
distinguished gentleman, Mr. Antony. He bowed once to one of us in the
street. Which of us was it, sister?"

Not Miss Mitty, at any rate, and she was inclined to think that Mr.
Carew had made a mistake, whichever way it had been!

Their lodger listened with more interest when they spoke of the
children. The little creatures went to school near the Whitcomb house.
Gardiner was always ailing. Miss Mitty used to watch them from her
window.

"Bella runs like a deer down the block, you never saw such nimble legs,
and her skirts are _so_ short! They _should_ come down, Mr. Antony, and
her hair is quite li