faultless
instinct of the child whose childhood had become a memory. Then, once
more spiritually equal, they smiled at one another; and Lissa, pausing
to gather up her ermine stole, passed noiselessly out to the aisle,
where she stood, perfectly self-possessed, while her sister joined her,
smiling vaguely down at the firing-line and their lifted battery of
blue, inquiring eyes.

The poet--and whether he had slumbered or not nobody but himself is
qualified to judge--the poet pensively opened one eye and peeped at
Harrow as that young man bent beside him with Lethbridge at his elbow.

"In sending those two tickets you have taught us a new creed," whispered
Harrow; "you have taught us innocence and simplicity--you have taught us
to be ourselves, to scorn convention, to say and do what we believe.
Thank you."

"Dear friend," said the poet in an artistically-modulated whisper,
"I have long, long followed you in the high course of your career. To me
the priceless simplicity of poverty: to you the responsibility for
millions. To me the daisy, the mountain stream, the woodchuck and my
Art! To you the busy mart, the haunts of men, the ship of finance laden
with a nation's wealth, the awful burden of millions for which you are
answerable to One higher!" He raised one soft, solemn finger.

The young men gazed at one another, astounded. Lethbridge's startled
eyes said, "He still takes you for Stanley West!"

"Let him!" flashed the grim answer back from the narrowing gaze of
Harrow.

"Daughters," whispered the poet playfully, "are you so soon tired of the
brilliant gems of satire which our master dramatist scatters with a
lavish----"

"No," said Cybele; "we are only very much in love."

The poet sat up briskly and looked hard at Harrow.

"Your--your friend?" he began--"doubtless associated with you in the
high----"

"We are inseparable," said Harrow calmly, "in the busy marts."

The sweetness of the poet's smile was almost overpowering.

"To discuss this sudden--ah--condition which so--ah--abruptly confronts
a father, I can not welcome you to my little home in the wild--which I
call the House Beautiful," he said. "I would it were possible. There all
is quiet and simple and exquisitely humble--though now, through the
grace of my valued son, there is no mortgage hanging like the brand of
Damocles above our lowly roof. But I bid you welcome in the name of my
son-in-law, on whom--I should say, _with_ whom--I and my babes