roubling my
friends in that way. It is just that--"

"Oh, I see," Mrs. Mavick interrupted, with good-humor, "it's about
the novel. I hear that it has sold very well. And you are not certain
whether its success will warrant your giving up your clerkship. Now as
for me," and she leaned back in her chair, with the air of weighing the
chances in her mind, "it doesn't seem to me that a writer--"

"No, it is not that," said Philip, leaning forward and looking her full
in the face with all the courage he could summon, "it is your daughter."

"What!" cried Mrs. Mavick, in a tone of incredulous surprise.

"I was afraid you would think me very presumptuous."

"Presumptuous! Why, she is a child. Do you know what you are talking
about?"

"My mother married at eighteen," said Philip, gently.

"That is an interesting piece of information, but I don't see its
bearing. Will you tell me, Mr. Burnett, what nonsense you have got into
your head?"

"I want," and Philip spoke very gently--"I want, Mrs. Mavick, permission
to see your daughter."

"Ah! I thought in Rivervale, Mr. Burnett, that you were a gentleman. You
presume upon my invitation to this house, in an underhand way, to--What
right have you?"

Mrs. Mavick was so beside herself that she could hardly speak. The
lines in her face deepened into wrinkles and scowls. There was something
malevolent and mean in it. Philip was astonished at the transformation.
And she looked old and ugly in her passion.

"You!" she repeated.

"It is only this, Mrs. Mavick," and Philip spoke calmly, though his
blood was boiling at her insulting manner--"it is only this--I love your
daughter."

"And you have told her this?"

"No, never, never a word."

"Does she know anything of this absurd, this silly attempt?"

"I am afraid not."

"Ah! Then you have spared yourself one humiliation. My daughter's
affections are not likely to be placed where her parents do not approve.
Her mother is her only confidante. I can tell you, Mr. Burnett, and when
you are over this delusion you will thank me for being so plain with
you, my daughter would laugh at the idea of such a proposal. But I will
not have her annoyed by impecunious aspirants."

"Madam!" cried Philip, rising, with a flushed face, and then he
remembered that he was talking to Evelyn's mother, and uttered no other
word.

"This is ended." And then, with a slight change of manner, she went on:
"You must see how impossible it is. You are a