the room.

Half an hour later she came back and called softly to him from the
doorway; and he followed her to the dining-room.

"It isn't much of a dinner, Noble," she said, a little tremulously,
being for once (though strictly as a cook) genuinely apologetic;--but
the scrambled eggs, cold lamb, salad, and coffee were quite as "much of
a dinner" as Noble wanted. To him everything on that table was hallowed,
yet excruciating.

"Let's eat first and talk afterward," Julia proposed; but what she
meant by "talk" evidently did not exclude interchange of information
regarding weather and the health of acquaintances, for she spoke freely
upon these subjects, while Noble murmured in response and swallowed a
little of the sacred food, but more often swallowed nothing. Bitterest
of all was his thought of what this unexampled seclusion with Julia
could have meant to him, were those poisonous violets not at her
waist--for she had put them on again--and were there no Crum in the
South. Without these fatal obstructions, the present moment would have
been to him a bit of what he often thought of as "dream life"; but all
its sweetness was a hurt.

"_Now_ we'll talk!" said Julia, when she had brought him back to the
library fire again, and they were seated before it. "Don't you want to
smoke?" He shook his head dismally, having no heart for what she
proposed. "Well, then," she said briskly, but a little ruefully, "let's
get to the bottom of things. Just what did you mean you had 'in black
and white' in your pocket?"

Slowly Noble drew forth the historic copy of _The North End Daily
Oriole_; and with face averted, placed it in her extended hand.

"What in the world!" she exclaimed, unfolding it; and then as its title
and statement of ownership came into view, "Oh, yes! I see. Aunt Carrie
wrote me that Uncle Joseph had given Herbert a printing-press. I suppose
Herbert's the editor?"

"And that Rooter boy," Noble said sadly. "I think maybe your little
niece Florence has something to do with it, too."

"'Something' to do with it? She usually has _all_ to do with anything
she gets hold of! But what's it got to do with me?"

"You'll see!" he prophesied accurately.

She began to read, laughing at some of the items as she went along; then
suddenly she became rigid, holding the small journal before her in a
transfixed hand.

"Oh!" she cried. "_Oh!_"

"That's--that's what--I meant," Noble explained.

Julia's eyes grew dangerous. "