nd his lungs. I never heard a better resonance nor
better breath control. Really, I'd like to hear him speak at closer
range. When did you say the dinner is? Of course, we'll go. Dennison
isn't a bad little fellow, even if his mind did stop short at history."

"The dinner is for Thursday," Olive reiterated patiently.

"Thursday. Hm. What am I doing then?" her father questioned for, as may
be imagined, it was Olive who kept the run of his engagements.

"Nothing, after the hospital directors' meeting at two. Really," Olive
spoke a little absently, herself; "I almost wish that you were."

As invariably happened, the doctor's attention became alert when she
least expected it.

"Eh? What?" he asked her, in manifest surprise, for it was most unusual
for Olive to balk at any invitation.

Her colour came.

"Oh, it's all right. Of course, we'll go. In fact, there's no getting
out of it, as long as you are senior warden."

The doctor fished for the cord of his see-off glasses. When they were
astride his nose,--

"You like Mrs. Dennison, Olive," he said crisply. "Therefore, by a
process of elimination, it probably is the Brentons you don't want to
meet. What is the matter with them?"

"Oh, nothing," the girl evaded. "It's only that I hate too prompt a
rushing into a new acquaintance."

"Not always," her father reminded her. "As a rule, you've been willing
enough to meet the new people at the college."

Olive Keltridge's ancestral notions, the notions born of Brahmin and
academic New England, spoke in her reply.

"Yes; but they are different."

Her father, though, saw more clearly. He was too well aware of the
quality of the raw material whence the growing college faculties must
recruit their ranks.

"Not always, Olive; at least, not nowadays, even if it used to be. But
what is the matter with Brenton? He seems possible enough."

"Nothing," she confessed, with a little blush for her distinction
between man and wife. "It is only Mrs. Brenton. He is very possible, I
should say; but she seems to me a--" and Olive laughed at the absurdity
of her own coming phrase; "a trifle improbable."

The doctor shook his head.

"I haven't seen her."

"Yes, you have. She was just in front of us, the woman in the
pinky-yellow feather and the pompadour. You must remember her; she was
casting sheep's-eyes at Mr. Brenton, all the time he was preaching.
That was the way I found out who she was. My curiosity led me to ask
Dolph De