standing over by the window looking out at my garden in its
twilight glow. I gave him my hand and a good deal more of a smile and a
blush than I intended.

He very far from kissed the hand; he held it just long enough to turn me
round into the light and give me one long looking-over from head to
feet.

"Just where does that corset press you worst?" he asked in the tone of
voice he uses to say "put out your tongue." So much of my bad temper
rose to my face that it is a wonder it didn't make a scar; but I was
cold enough to all outward appearances.

"I am making a call on a friend, Dr. Moore, and not a consultation visit
to my physician," I said, looking into his face as though I had never
seen him before.

"I beg your pardon, Molly," he exclaimed, and his face was redder than
mine, and then it went white with mortification. I couldn't stand that.

"Don't do that!" I exclaimed, and before I knew it I had taken hold of
his hand, and had it in both of mine. "I know I look as if I was shrunk
or laced, but I'm not! I was going to tell you all about it. I'm really
inches bigger in the right place, and just--just 'controlled,' the woman
called it, in the wrong place."

The blood came back into his face, and he laughed as he gave me a little
shake that pushed me away from him. "Don't you ever scare me like that
again, child, or it might be serious," he said in the Billy-and-me tone
of voice that I like a little, only--

"I never will," I said in a hurry; "I want you to ask me anything in the
world you want to, and I'll always do it."

"Well, let me take you home through the garden then--and, yes, I believe
I'll stay to supper with Mrs. Henderson. Don't you want to tell me what
a little girl like you did in a big city, and--and read me part of that
Paris letter I saw the postman give Jane this afternoon?"

Again I ask myself the question why his friendliness to Alfred Bennett's
letters always makes me so instantly cross.

Leaf IV.

Sleep is one of the most delightful and undervalued amusements known to
the human race. I have never had enough yet, and every second of time
that I'm not busy with something interesting, I curl up on the bed and
go dream-hunting--only I sleep too hard to do much catching. But this
torture book found that out about me, and stopped it the very first
thing on page three. The command is to sleep as little as possible to
keep the nerves in a good condition--"eight hours at the most, a