nd remember that I am
your childhood's companion when you decide between us." With which he
handed me a blue telegram.

I opened it hastily and found that it was from Richard:

Am coming down to Bolivar with C. & G. Commission. Be deciding
about what I wrote you. Must.

RICHARD.

I sat perfectly still for several seconds because I felt that a good
strong hand had reached out of the distance and gently grabbed me.
Dickie had bossed me strenuously through two years of the time before I
had awakened to the fact that, for his good, I must take the direction
of the affairs of him and his kind on my and my kind's shoulders.

I suppose a great many years of emancipation will have to pass over the
heads of women before they lose the gourd kind of feeling at the sight
of a particularly broad, strong pair of shoulders. My heart sparkled at
the idea of seeing Dickie again and being browbeaten in a good old,
methodical, tender way. I suppose the sparkle in my heart showed in my
eyes, for Polk sat up quickly and took notice of it very decidedly.

"Wire especially impassioned?" he asked, with a smolder in his eyes.

"Not especially." I answered serenely, "One of my friend's father is a
director in the C. & G. and he is coming down with him for the
conference over at Bolivar between the two roads next week."

"Good," answered Polk, heartily, as the flare died out of his eyes.

I was glad he didn't have to see the wire for I wanted to use Polk's
brain a while if I could get his emotions to sleep in my presence. It is
very exasperating for a woman to be offered flirtation when she is in
need of common sense from a man. There are so many times she needs the
one rather than the other, but the dear creatures refuse to realize it,
if she's under forty.

"Polk, do you see any logical, honest or dishonest way to get that Road
to take the Glendale bluff line?" I asked, with trepidation, for that
was the first time I had ever even begun to discuss anything
intelligently with Polk.

"None in the world, Evelina," he answered with a nice, straight,
intellectuality showing over his whole face and even his lazy, posing
figure. "I remonstrated with James and Henry Carruthers both when they
used their influence to have the bonds voted and I told James it was
madness to invest in all that field and swamp property with just a
chance of the shops. The trouble was that James had always left all his
business to Henry, along with