e was
little of the hour left when he rose to go. They had passed a pleasant
time. The Creole, it is true, tried and failed to take the helm of
conversation. Mrs. Riley held it. But she steered well. She was still
expatiating on the "strinthenin'" spiritual value of the marriage
relation when she, too, stood up.

"And that's what Mr. and Madam Richlin's a-doin' all the time. And they
do ut to perfiction, sur--jist to perfiction!"

"I doubt it not, Misses Wiley. Well, Misses Wiley, I bid you _au
'evoi'_. I dunno if you'll pummit me, but I am compel to tell you,
Misses Wiley, I nevva yeh anybody in my life with such a educated and
talented conve'sation like yo'seff. Misses Wiley, at what univussity did
you gwaduate?"

"Well, reely, Mister--eh"--she fanned herself with broad sweeps of her
purple bordered palm-leaf--"reely, sur, if I don't furgit the name
I--I--I'll be switched! Ha! ha! ha!"

Narcisse joined in the laugh.

"Thaz the way, sometime," he said, and then with sudden gravity: "And,
by-the-by, Misses Wiley, speakin' of Mistoo Itchlin,--if you could baw'
me two dollahs an' a 'alf juz till tomaw mawnin--till I kin sen' it you
fum the office-- Because that money I've got faw Mistoo Itchlin is
in the shape of a check, and anyhow I'm c'owding me a little to pay that
whole sum-total to Mistoo Itchlin. I kin sen' it you firs' thing my bank
open tomaw mawnin."

Do you think he didn't get it?

* * *

"What has it got down to now?" John asked again, a few mornings after
Narcisse's last visit. Mary told him. He stepped a little way aside,
averting his face, dropped his forehead into his hand, and returned.

"I don't see--I don't see, Mary--I"--

"Darling," she replied, reaching and capturing both his hands, "who does
see? The rich _think_ they see; but do they, John? Now, _do_ they?"

The frown did not go quite off his face, but he took her head between
his hands and kissed her temple.

"You're always trying to lift me," he said.

"Don't you lift me?" she replied, looking up between his hands and
smiling.

"Do I?"

"You know you do. Don't you remember the day we took that walk, and you
said that after all it never is we who provide?" She looked at the
button of his coat, which she twirled in her fingers. "That word lifted
me."

"But suppose I can't practice the trust I preach?" he said.

"You do trust, though. You have trusted."

"Past tense," said John. He lifted her hands slowly