for you people in New York to live on. In the meantime Miss
Patricia Adair, my sister, is going to New York to see to the
putting on of a play she has written for one Mr. Godfrey Vandeford.
She is the greatest girl ever, and you stay right on the job seeing
that things go right for her while I plant these potatoes to keep
you from starving. She will be at the Y. W. C. A. and will sleep
and eat safe enough, but you look out for her and don't let her get
homesick. If she needs me, of course I will come, but she's a
plucky child and you are the best ever, so I'll go on ploughing
with a free mind. Let me know how it all goes. What sort of a chap
is that Vandeford?

Yours as always and forever,
ROGER.

"Can you beat it?" demanded good Dennis, with a blaze of friendship in
his eyes as he regarded Miss Patricia Adair. "It was forwarded from my
old office number to my new, to Westchester to Nantucket, back to my
office, and finally arrived this morning. I've just sent Roger a
thousand-word telegram, and I hope he never knows that I was off the job
ten days. Give that child here to me, Van, and go get a report on your
character for me before you look at her again. Roger Adair is the best
friend I've got on earth, next to you, and you'd better watch your
step."

"I like his steps," Miss Adair said, and again Mr. Vandeford felt
uncertain as to that curious little flutter that was like a nestling of
which he felt he was never to be certain and which Mr. Farraday did not
seem to observe at all.

"Didn't you know that Roger was turning you over to me, young lady? Why
have you side-stepped me?" Mr. Farraday demanded of the young author, in
a voice of great severity.

"I thought that Roger was going to write to a Mr. Denny about me; and I
didn't write to him that Mr. Denny hadn't come to take care of me
because--because I was afraid he'd leave his work and come up to look
after me himself. I didn't remember the Farraday part of your name at
all. Roger always said 'Denny.'"

"Well, I suppose I'll have to accept that excuse, as it sounds fairly
reasonable; but I'd like to know, Van, why you have been keeping my
child here in this musty old theater until past luncheon time when she
must be both tired and hungry. Come out to Claremont to luncheon, both
of you, this minute," Mr. Farraday both questioned and commanded, with
pure delight in his voice and manner. "I'll go run