ed of it as marking their progressiveness.

He had a neat ankle, had the Reverend Scoville, in fine black lisle; a
merry eye; a rather grim look about the mouth, as has a man whose life
is a secret disappointment. His little daughter worshipped him. He
called her Harry. When Harrietta was eleven she was reading Lever and
Dickens and Dumas, while other little girls were absorbed in the Elsie
Series and The Wide, Wide World. Her father used to deliver his sermons
to her in private rehearsal, and her eager mobile face reflected his
every written mood.

"Oh, Rev!" she cried one day (it is to be regretted, but that is what
she always called him). "Oh, Rev, you should have been an actor!"

He looked at her queerly. "What makes you think so?"

"You're too thrilling for a minister." She searched about in her agile
mind for fuller means of making her thought clear. "It's like when
Mother cooks rose geranium leaves in her grape jell. She says they gives
it a finer flavour, but they don't really. You can't taste them for the
grapes, so they're just wasted when they're so darling and perfumy and
just right in the garden." Her face was pink with earnestness.

"D'you see what I mean, Rev?"

"Yes, I think I see, Harry."

Then she surprised him. "I'm going on the stage," she said, "and be a
great actress when I'm grown up."

His heart gave a leap and a lurch. "Why do you say that?"

"Because I want to. And because you didn't. It'll be as if you had been
an actor instead of a minister--only it'll be me."

A bewildering enough statement to any one but the one who made it and
the one to whom it was made. She was trying to say that here was the law
of compensation working. But she didn't know this. She had never heard
of the law of compensation.

Her gentle mother fought her decision with all the savagery of the
gentle.

"You'll have to run away, Harry," her father said, sadly. And at
twenty-two Harrietta ran. Her objective was New York. Her father did not
burden her with advice. He credited her with the intelligence she
possessed, but he did overlook her emotionalism, which was where he made
his mistake. Just before she left he said: "Now listen, Harry. You're a
good-looking girl, and young. You'll keep your looks for a long time.
You're not the kind of blonde who'll get wishy-washy or fat. You've got
quite a good deal of brunette in you. It crops out in your voice. It'll
help preserve your looks. Don't marry the first man w