So--I--I--don't
know what to say."

He looked so cast down that she hastened on: "Yes--come whenever you
like. We're always at home. But we work all day."

"So do I," said Arthur. "Thank you. I'll come--some evening next week."

Suddenly he felt peculiarly at ease with her, as if he had always known
her, as if she and he understood each other perfectly. "I'm afraid you'll
find me stupid," he went on. "I don't know much about any of the things
you're interested in."

"Perhaps I'm interested in more things than you imagine," said she. "My
sister says I'm a fraud--that I really have a frivolous mind and that my
serious look is a hollow pretense."

And so they talked on, not getting better acquainted but enjoying the
realization of how extremely well acquainted they were. When he was gone,
Madelene found that her father had been in for some time. "Didn't he ask
for me?" she said to Walpurga.

"Yes," answered Walpurga. "And I told him you were flirting with
Arthur Ranger."

Madelene colored violently. "I never heard that word in this house
before," she said stiffly.

"Nor I," replied Walpurga, the pink and white. "And I think it's high
time--with you nearly twenty-two and me nearly twenty."

At dinner her father said: "Well, Lena, so you've got a beau at last. I'd
given up hope."

"For Heaven's sake don't scare him away, father!" cried Walpurga.

"A pretty poor excuse," pursued the doctor. "I doubt if Arthur Ranger can
make enough to pay his own board in a River Street lodging house."

"It took courage--real courage--to go to work as he did," replied
Madelene, her color high.

"Yes," admitted her father, "_if_ he sticks to it."

"He will stick to it," affirmed Madelene.

"I think so," assented her father, dropping his teasing pretense and
coming out frankly for Arthur. "When a man shows that he has the courage
to cross the Rubicon, there's no need to worry about whether he'll go on
or turn back."

"You mustn't let him know he's the only beau you've ever had, Meg,"
cautioned her sister.

"And why not?" demanded Madelene. "If I ever did care especially for a
man, I'd not care for him because other women had. And I shouldn't want a
man to be so weak and vain as to feel that way about me."

It was a temptation to that aloof and isolated, yet anything but lonely
or lonesome, household to discuss this new and strange phenomenon--the
intrusion of an outsider, and he a young man. But the earnestness in
Madele