s can't expect everybody to keep their eyes
shut and draw no conclusions. Of course I understand Paul's not saying
anything definite till now, on account of your being so young."

Something of Marietta's unsparing presentation of facts was inherited
from her father, though, under his wife's tutelage, he usually spared
Lydia when he thought of it. At this time he was speaking almost
absently, his attention divided between the exceptions to his rulings
taken by the corporation counsel and the quality of his dinner; both
disturbing to his quiet. He finally gave up the attempt at mastication
and swallowed the morsel bodily, with a visible gulp. As he felt the
consequent dull lump of discomfort, he allowed himself his first
articulate protest. "Good Heavens! What meat!"

Lydia had grown quite pale. She pushed back her plate and looked at her
father with horrified eyes. "Father! What a thing to say!" she finally
cried out. "You make me ashamed to look him--to look anybody in the
face. Why, I never dreamed of such a thing! I never--"

Judge Emery was very fond of his pretty daughter, and at this appeal
from what he felt to be a very mild expression of justified discontent,
he melted at once. "Now, never mind, Lydia, it won't kill me. Only as
soon as your mother gets about again, for the Lord's sake have her take
you to a butcher shop and learn to select meats."

Lydia looked at him blankly. She had the feeling that her father was so
remote from her that she could hardly see him. She opened her lips to
speak, but at that moment the maid--the latest acquisition from the
employment agency, a slatternly Irish girl--went through the dining-room
on her way to answer the door-bell, and her father's amused comment cut
her short. "Lydia, you'll have your guests thinking they're at a lunch
counter if you let that girl go on wearing that agglomeration of hair."

The maid reappeared, sidling into the room, half carrying, half dragging
a narrow, tall green pasteboard box, higher than herself but still not
long enough for its contents, which protruded in leafy confusion from
one end. "It's for you," she said bluntly, depositing it beside Lydia
and retreating into the kitchen.

Lydia looked at it in wonder, turning to crimson confusion when her
father said: "From Paul, I suppose. Very nice, I'm sure. Ring the bell
for dessert before you open it. Of course you're in a hurry to read the
card." He smiled with a tender amusement at the girl