ng
with pleasure as the tall girl in a blue apron came out to meet them.
The stable-boy came to take the horse, and Catherine escorted her
parents to the house. While they made themselves ready for supper, she
put the last orderly touches to the table in the panelled dining-room,
and was ready for them with kisses when they arrived.

The silent grace over, Catherine spoke:

"Eat and be filled, dearly beloved, because I have a new project and I
need you to be enthusiastic."

"What is it this time?" asked Dr. Harlow, serving the golden scallop
generously. "You have shown diplomacy in your choice of a dish, if I am
the one you wish to wheedle."

Dr. Helen, pouring yellow cream from a fat silver jug into thin
hexagonal cups, sent an interested glance across the table at her
daughter.

"Tell us," she said.

"It's quite new," said Catherine, hesitating a little. "In fact it's not
a half-hour old, but I do believe it is a good plan. You know Algernon
Swinburne?"

"We have met him," agreed Dr. Harlow cautiously.

"So had I!" said Catherine with sudden spirit, "and this afternoon it
came to me that I didn't know him at all. All any of us ever do to
Algernon is to avoid him,--those of us who don't laugh at him. And he's
lonely, Father! Lonely!"

"Did he tell you so?"

"No. But I suddenly knew. I've seen homesick girls at college,
and--and--well, there was a little while, just a little while, when I
was getting strong enough to do things, and before Hannah came to visit,
that I felt that way myself, so I know."

Dr. Helen's look was like a pressure of the hand, and she answered
gently:

"I think you are very likely right, Catherine. And this plan of yours is
to make Algernon less lonely?"

"Do you think he knows he's lonely?" asked Dr. Harlow. "I've thought the
boy had good stuff in him, and if he should ever wake up to the fact
that he's a bore, he might amount to something worth while. You don't
think he has, do you?"

"Not exactly," Catherine confessed, remembering the note-book's
appearance at the end of her little story. "But I think he has an
inkling that he might be of more use. I told him he was a walking
library. He does know such an amazing amount, you know! And he said
Winsted would be better off if it had a real library instead of his
kind; and then it flashed into my mind how he would love living among
books, and how fine it would be for the town if all that knowledge of
his could be used--"

"L