leep."

"I wasn't. What were you going to say?"

"Oh, nothing in particular--was just going to ask what you think of a
man who lives a lie?"

"I should think," Richmond answered, "that he must be a pretty natural
sort of a fellow."

CHAPTER XXX.

A MOTHER'S REQUEST.

At dinner, the evening after Henry had returned from the country,
Ellen caused her mother to look up by saying that Miss Miller's chance
was gone.

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Witherspoon asked. "I wasn't aware that Miss
Miller ever had any chance, as you are pleased to term it. But why
hasn't she as much chance now as she ever had?"

"Because her opportunity has been killed."

"Was it ever alive?" Henry asked.

"Oh, yes, but it is dead now. Mother, you ought to see the young woman
I saw at Henry's office the other day. Look, he's trying to blush. Oh,
she's dazzling with her great blue eyes."

Mrs. Witherspoon's look demanded an explanation.

"Mother," said Henry, "she means our book-reviewer."

"I don't like literary women," Mrs. Witherspoon replied, with stress
in the movement of her head and with prejudice in the compression of
her lips. "They are too--too uppish, I may say."

"But Miss Drury makes no literary pretensions," Henry rejoined.

"I should think not," Ellen spoke up. "I didn't take her to be
literary, she was so neatly dressed."

"When you cease so lightly to discuss a noble-minded girl--a friend
of mine--you will do me a great favor," Henry replied.

"What's all this?" Witherspoon asked. He had paid no attention to this
trifling set-to and had caught merely the last accent of it.

"Oh, nothing, I'm sure," Ellen answered.

"Very well, then, we can easily put it aside. Henry, what was it you
said to-day at noon about going away?"

"I said that I was going with a newspaper excursion to Mexico."

"Oh, surely, not so far as that!" Mrs. Witherspoon exclaimed.

"It won't take long, mother."

"No, but it's so far; and I should think that you've had enough of
that country."

"I've never been in Mexico."

"Oh, well, all those countries down there are just the same, and I
should think that when you have seen one your first impression is that
you don't want to see another."

"They are restful at any rate," he replied.

"But can't you rest nearer home?"

"I could, but I have made up my mind to go with this excursion. I'll
not be gone long."

"When are you going to start?"

"To-morrow evening."

"So soon as t