et favors for his friends!"

And, in effect, it proved that Albert was in politics to some purpose,
for orders came up from the Head's office within twenty minutes after
Mrs. De Guenther had used the telephone on her husband, that Miss
Braithwaite was to have a half-day immediately--as far as she could make
out, in order to transact city affairs! She felt as if the angels had
told her she could have the last fortnight over again, as a favor, or
something of the sort. A half-day out of turn was something nobody had
ever heard of. She was even too surprised to object to the frock part of
the situation. She tried to stand out a little longer, but it's a very
stoical young woman who can refuse to have pretty clothes bought for
her, and the end of it was a seat in a salon which she had always
considered so expensive that you scarcely ought to look in the window.

"Had it better be a black suit?" asked Mrs. De Guenther doubtfully, as
the tall lady in floppy charmeuse hovered haughtily about them,
expecting orders. "It seems horrible to buy mourning when dear Angela is
not yet passed away, but it would only be showing proper respect; and I
remember my own dear mother planned all our mourning outfits while she
was dying. It was quite a pleasure to her."

Phyllis kept her face straight, and slipped one persuasive hand through
her friend's arm.

"I don't believe I _could_ buy mourning, dear," she said. "And--oh, if
you knew how long I'd wanted a really _blue_ blue suit! Only, it would
have been too vivid to wear well--I always knew that--because you can
only afford one every other year. And"--Phyllis rather diffidently
voiced a thought which had been in the back of her mind for a long
time--"if I'm going to be much around Mr. Harrington, don't you think
cheerful clothes would be best? Everything in that house seems sombre
enough now."

"Perhaps you are right, dear child," said Mrs. De Guenther. "I hope you
may be the means of putting a great deal of brightness into poor Allan's
life before he joins his mother."

"Oh, don't!" cried Phyllis impulsively. Somehow she could not bear to
think of Allan Harrington's dying. He was too beautiful to be dead,
where nobody could see him any more. Besides, Phyllis privately
considered that a long vacation before he joined his mother would be
only the fair thing for "poor Allan." Youth sides with youth. And--the
clear-cut white lines of him rose in her memory and stayed there. She
could