ery Tom, Dick and Harry knowing all
what goes on in town! You telephone me when your papa's ready to go over
the papers--and call me up at my house to-night, will you? Let me hear
how he's feeling?"

"I will," she said, and through her grateful tears gave him a smile
almost radiant. "He'll be better, Mr. Lamb. We all will."

CHAPTER XXV

One morning, that autumn, Mrs. Adams came into Alice's room, and found
her completing a sober toilet for the street; moreover, the expression
revealed in her mirror was harmonious with the business-like severity
of her attire. "What makes you look so cross, dearie?" the mother asked.
"Couldn't you find anything nicer to wear than that plain old dark
dress?"

"I don't believe I'm cross," the girl said, absently. "I believe I'm
just thinking. Isn't it about time?"

"Time for what?"

"Time for thinking--for me, I mean?"

Disregarding this, Mrs. Adams looked her over thoughtfully. "I can't see
why you don't wear more colour," she said. "At your age it's becoming
and proper, too. Anyhow, when you're going on the street, I think you
ought to look just as gay and lively as you can manage. You want to show
'em you've got some spunk!"

"How do you mean, mama?"

"I mean about Walter's running away and the mess your father made of his
business. It would help to show 'em you're holding up your head just the
same."

"Show whom!"

"All these other girls that----"

"Not I!" Alice laughed shortly, shaking her head. "I've quit dressing at
them, and if they saw me they wouldn't think what you want 'em to. It's
funny; but we don't often make people think what we want 'em to, mama.
You do thus and so; and you tell yourself, 'Now, seeing me do thus and
so, people will naturally think this and that'; but they don't. They
think something else--usually just what you DON'T want 'em to. I suppose
about the only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling
ourselves that we fool somebody."

"Well, but it wouldn't be pretending. You ought to let people see you're
still holding your head up because you ARE. You wouldn't want that
Mildred Palmer to think you're cast down about--well, you know you
wouldn't want HER not to think you're holding your head up, would you?"

"She wouldn't know whether I am or not, mama." Alice bit her lip, then
smiled faintly as she said:

"Anyhow, I'm not thinking about my head in that way--not this morning,
I'm not."

Mrs. Adams dropped the subject casua