shing for the
things I can't have."

"Ah, but you're going to have this," he exclaimed, his face beaming.
"Felix is preparing a little surprise for you, but he gave me
permission to tell you about it."

The expression upon the faces of both women and their little
exclamations told Gordon, as he glanced from one to the other, that
their surprise was as great as their pleasure.

"Felix is going to have it done for you," he went on, "as soon as he
returns. I forgot to tell you, and perhaps, as he went away rather
unexpectedly, he didn't write you, that he was called out of the city
a few days ago on pressing business. I saw him when he was leaving and
I know you may expect to hear from him about the porch as soon as he
returns. I'll tell him how pleased you are about it."

They gave him messages of gratitude and love and the three of them
discussed the little improvement with the intimacy of old friends.
Several books, one of them still open at the page where Penelope had
been reading, were on a table beside the window. Gordon took them up
one by one and ran over their titles. "Ah, poetry--and fiction--and
biography--how catholic your interests are, Penelope! But I knew that
already. Sociology, too. Yes, I knew that is your favorite study. It
is mine, too, but I haven't had as much time yet to read along that
line as I would like. What have you lately read on that subject?"

She told him of some of the recent books that had interested her most
and mentioned the titles of others that she thought would be worth
while.

"After you read them," he said, in his quick, decisive way, "I'd like
very much to know what you think of them."

"I'd be glad to talk them over with you, but it's not likely I can
have the opportunity of reading them very soon. I take books from the
town library, and so many people always want the new ones that
sometimes my turn is a long time coming."

He was making a note of their titles. "I'll tell Felix you're
interested in them," he rejoined casually, "and I'm sure he'll send
them to you."

Wonderment filled the minds of both mother and daughter and showed in
their faces.

"You and my brother must be great friends," Penelope hastened to say,
"although you seem to be so different from him. You resemble him a
little--yes, a good deal, physically, but in manner, expression and, I
should think, in mind and temperament and character, you must be very
different. But perhaps that only makes you th