at is the last I shall hear of it," she concluded.

Not so. Mrs. Galway came that evening, a bearer of messages.

"He says it is the most wonderful jelly that ever was," said Mrs. Galway.
"He ate half the glass for dinner and is saving the rest for
breakfast--I'm using his own words and you know what a killing way he has
of putting things--saving it for breakfast so that he will have something
to live through the night for and in the morning the joy of it will not
be all a memory. He wants to know if you have any more of the same kind."

"Yes, a dozen glasses," Mary returned. "Tell him we are glad of the
opportunity of finishing last year's stock, and I send it provided he
eats half a glass with every meal."

"I don't know what his answer will be to that," said Mrs. Galway,
contracting her brow studiously at Mary. "But he would have one quick. He
always has. He's so poetic and all that, we're planning to go to the
station to see him off and pelt him with flowers; and Dr. Patterson is
going to fashion a white cat out of white carnations, with deep red ones
for the black stripes, for the children to present."

"Hurrah!" exclaimed Mary blithely, and went for the jelly.

She was spared further bulletins on the state of health of the wounded
until her father returned from his daily call the next morning. She was
in the living-room and she knew by his step on the porch, vigorous yet
light, that he was uplifted by good news or by the anticipation of the
exploitation of some new idea--a pleasure second only to that of the
idea's birth. Such was his elation that he broke one of his own rules by
tossing some of the books loaned to Jack onto the broad top of the table
of the living-room, which was sacred to the isolation of the ivory
paper-knife.

"He has named the date!" shouted the Doge. "He goes by to-morrow's train!
It will be a gala affair, almost an historical moment in the early
history of this community. I am to make a speech presenting him with the
freedom of the whole world. Between us we have hit on a proper modern
symbol of the gift. He slips me his Pullman ticket and I formally offer
it to him as the key to the hospitality of the seven seas, the two
hemispheres, and the teeming cities that lie beyond the range. It will be
great fun, with plenty of persiflage. And, Mary, they suggest that you
write some verses--ridiculous verses, in keeping with the whole
nonsensical business."

"You mean that I am to stand on