wouldn't surprise me a bit to hear some fine day that Mr. Canning had
sneaked back, too, now that the worst is over, and wasn't so very bad at
that. There's a man I'd like to have five minutes' talk with," said
Henrietta Cooney. "I think I'd give him something to put in his
memory-book."

Hen, having her own theory of events, gave a defiant tug to her new
sailor-hat. She considered that she looked very nice to-day, and she
did. She, too, had been patronizing the midsummer sales, and beside the
sailor, she had on a new linen skirt which she had got for $1.75, though
the original price-mark was still on it and said $5.

"Cally," she continued, "wrote a good deal about her mother's being
dropped from the officers of the Associated Charities. Well it's too
bad, of course, but somebody's got to take the blow, V.V., and I imagine
it's going about where it belongs. Serves her right, I say, for the sort
of mother she's always been, doing her best to educate all the decent
feeling out of Cally, and then trying to break her when she was doing
the best thing she ever did in her life. In fact--I don't want to brag,
but I expect the talk I've spread around town has had a good deal to do
with the way things have gone. She married mother's brother and all
that," said Hen, "but I detest and despise her and always have."

V.V. burst out laughing, and Hen observed: "Well, I'm glad I said that.
It's the first smile I've seen from you this month."

She stood by the old secretary, looking down at him, and she thought
what a hard life he had down here, and how his face looked too refined
for this so practical world....

"Now, V.V., really," said she, "why can't you leave your work to this
man Finnegan for just a week and pack your little bag and run down to
Aunt Rose Hopwood's farmette--really? Tee Wee and Loo are there, and
everybody'll be delighted to have you. In the open air all day, sleep
ten hours every night, eat your blessed head off. No mosquitoes. No
malaria--"

"I can't go now, Hen. It's impossible. Thank you just the same."

He spoke quite irritably, for him, and Hen, having had this subject up
more than once before, desisted and turned to go.

"Well, take some sort of care of yourself, V.V.," she said from the
door. "Don't be a goose. And, by the way, be very gentle with your
little friend Corinne. You know she thinks you put up the moon."

V.V. had meant to be gentle with Corinne, but in the light of this
remark he