nclusion. But I wanted others to know what I had done and to be
pleased with me for doing it; and to tell anyone was quite out of the
question.

In the Club letter-box under "M," I saw a small gray envelope.
Instinct told me that it was for me, and that it was from Lucy. Then
somehow all my feeling of restlessness and suspense melted away like a
lump of sugar in hot tea. I felt at once serene and comfortable.

I carried the note to a writing-table, for I imagined that it would
require an immediate answer, and then read it. Like all Lucy's notes
it began without the conventional endearment, and ended with initials.
It contained also her usual half-dozen mistakes in spelling.

John says he has no money and can't get any. So we've got to close the
house and go back north, and live very cheaply till better times. So
I've got to begin packing. So I can't ride this afternoon. Isn't it
all a beastly shame? But please drop in and say how-dy-do just the
same, and don't mind if you have to sit on a trunk. And please be a
little sorry because I'm going away and we can't have any more rides.
And please don't say anything about this; because John isn't just
himself and maybe when we get all packed up he'll change his mind.

L. F.

Long before they were "all packed up," John did change his mind. I was
present when he changed it. Lucy, Evelyn, and I were in the
living-room helping each other to pack large silver-framed photographs
into the tray of a trunk. It was slow work. During the winter none of
us had looked at the photographs or commented on the originals, but now
that they were to be swathed in tissue paper and put out of sight each
one had to be approved or disapproved, and long excursions had to be
made into the life histories and affairs of the friends who had sat for
them.

Lucy had just taken a large photograph of Evelyn from the top of the
low bookshelves that filled one end of the room when John came in from
the garden with an open letter in his hand. He was smiling in a
puzzled sort of way.

"What do you know about this!" he exclaimed rather than asked.

"Nothing," said Lucy, "_yet_." And she began to wrap Evelyn's
photograph in many folds of tissue paper.

"Yesterday," said John, "I tried to get some money from the bank, but
they turned me down. Now they write that upon reconsideration I can
have anything I like."

Well, Lucy's expression at that moment was worth a great deal more than