she had accepted some one's proposal to marry Allan
Harrington. (Whether it counted as her future mother-in-law's proposal,
or her future trustee's, she was never sure. The only sure thing was
that it did not come from the groom.) She had borrowed a half-day from
the future on purpose, though she did not want to go at all. But the
reality was not bad; only a fluttering, emotional little woman who clung
to her hands and talked to her and asked useless questions with a
nervous insistence which would have been nerve-wearing for a steady
thing, but was only pitiful to a stranger.

You see strange people all the time in library work, and learn to place
them, at length, with almost as much accuracy as you do your books. The
fact that Mrs. Harrington was not long for this world did not prevent
Phyllis from classing her, in her mental card-catalogue, as a very
perfect specimen of the Loving Nagger. She was lying back, wrapped in
something gray and soft, when her visitors came, looking as if the
lifting of her hand would be an effort. She was evidently pitifully
weak. But she had, too, an ineradicable vitality she could summon at
need. She sprang almost upright to greet her visitors, a hand out to
each, an eager flood of words on her lips.

"And you are Miss Braithwaite, that is going to look after my boy?" she
ended. "Oh, it is so good of you--I am so glad--I can go in peace now.
Are you sure--sure you will know the minute his attendants are the least
bit negligent? I watch and watch them all the time. I tell Allan to ring
for me if anything ever is the least bit wrong--I am always begging him
to remember. I go in every night and pray with him--do you think you
could do that? But I always cry so before I'm through--I cry and cry--my
poor, helpless boy--he was so strong and bright! And you are sure you
are conscientious----"

At this point Phyllis stopped the flow of Mrs. Harrington's conversation
firmly, if sweetly.

"Yes, indeed," she said cheerfully. "But you know, if I'm not, Mr. De
Guenther can stop all my allowance. It wouldn't be to my own interest
not to fulfil my duties faithfully."

"Yes, that is true," said Mrs. Harrington. "That was a good thought of
mine. My husband always said I was an unusual woman where business was
concerned."

So they went on the principle that she had no honor beyond working for
what she would get out of it! Although she had made the suggestion
herself, Phyllis's cheeks burned, and she