er and rouge her face
looked worn and worried.

"Dear Mrs. Oldham," he said with the effect at least of his natural
manner, "I am sure you are bothering. Will you not tell me why and let me
at least try and be of some service to you? You know that I shall be only
too delighted to have you make me useful in any way that you can."

He spoke with sincere earnestness, for the small, frail creature beside
him, her Dresden-china prettiness all faded and eclipsed, her coquetry
extinguished, roused in him a sense of pity and protection.

"Ah, Mr. Hayden, Robert,--you gave me permission to call you Robert, did
you not?--you are too, too kind," She leaned her head back against the
cushions and carefully dabbled her eyes with her handkerchief.

"Now please, do not think of that," he urged; "just consider what a
pleasure it is to me to be of service to you."

"Ah," she threw aside all pretense now, and turning to him clutched his
arm, "the most terrible things have been happening and I have had to bear
them all alone. Marcia," petulantly, "has left me to bear all things
alone. She did not come home at all last night, but Kitty Hampton
telephoned quite late, after I had gone to bed, that she would spend the
night at her, Kitty's, home. Fancy! Rousing me from my sleep like that!
And then, early this morning, Marcia telephoned herself and said that she
could not possibly be at home before evening. Imagine! The
thoughtlessness, the heartlessness of such a thing!

"But that," resignedly, "that was a mere drop in the bucket. I wish her
father were alive! How he would tower in indignation at the thought of my
being so neglected and ignored, and by my own daughter, too,--a girl on
whose education he lavished a fortune! Why, Mr. Hayden, forgive me,
Robert, he would turn in his grave, literally turn in his grave, and"--in
a burst of fitful weeping--"he may be quite aware of it, for all we know,
and he may be turning in his grave at this very minute."

"Dear Mrs. Oldham," the late and ever lamented Oldham himself, could not
have been more sympathetic, "you must have been very lonely indeed, and
very much bored, I can quite understand that, but surely, you are not
making yourself unhappy over this--this seeming neglect on the part of
your daughter. Believe me, you will find that she has some good reason
for this action. Surely that is not the only thing that is worrying you."

"Certainly not," The little lady tossed her head and spoke w