ion of seeing him off, too. Millicent
openly declared that they two were going together, that in fact she was
taking him home to show him to her family in South Newton and see
whether they liked him.

Ellett put this aspect of the affair aside. "Well, then," he said, "if
you're going to be in Boston together, I think you ought to see the S.
B. & H. C. traffic-manager, and find out all about what kept Phyl's
piano so long on the road. _I_ think they owe her an explanation, and
Gaites is a lawyer, and he's just the man to get it, with damages."

Gaites saw in Ellett's impudent, amusing face that he divined
Millicent's continued ignorance of his romance, and was bent on
mischief. But the girl paid no heed to his talk, and Gaites could not
help laughing. He liked the fellow; he even liked Miss Desmond, who was
so much softened by the occasion that she had all the thorny allure of a
ripened barberry in his fancy. They both hung about the seat, where he
stood ready to take his place beside Millicent, till the conductor
shouted, "All aboard!" Then they ran out, and waved to the lovers
through the window till the car started.

When they could be seen no longer, Millicent let Gaites arrange their
hand-baggage together on the seat in front of them. It was a warm day,
and she said she did believe she would take her hat off; and she gave it
to him, odorous of her pretty hair, to put in the rack overhead. After
he had done this, and sat down definitively, she shrank unconsciously
closer to him, knitting her fingers in those of his hand on the seat
between them.

"Now," she said, "tell me all about yourself."

"About myself?"

"Yes. About Phyllis Desmond's piano, and why you were so interested in
it."

A DIFFICULT CASE.

I.

It was in the fervor of their first married years that the Ewberts came
to live in the little town of Hilbrook, shortly after Hilbrook
University had been established there under the name of its founder,
Josiah Hilbrook. The town itself had then just changed its name, in
compliance with the conditions of his public benefactions, and in
recognition of the honor he had done it in making it a seat of learning.
Up to a certain day it had been called West Mallow, ever since it was
set off from the original town of Mallow; but after a hundred and
seventy years of this custom it began on that day to call itself
Hilbrook, and thenceforward, with the curious American acquiescence in
the accomplish