red. "He's a big strapping fellow with the same
handsome, happy face. I should have known him anywhere. He wants to get
started in business, and his father wants him to go into the diplomatic
service."

"So Stephen wrote me." Gorham laughed quietly, turning to his wife, who
had entered a moment before with Patricia. "The boy's father is the
worst enemy he has. He has thoroughly spoiled him all his life, and now
expects him to do great things. He scores him because he has no
initiative, and the first time the youngster tries to exercise it by
expressing his preference for business instead of diplomacy, Stephen
calls him obstinate and ungrateful. Now he wants me to talk with Allen
and persuade him that his father is right."

"If you are not otherwise engaged you'll have a chance to-morrow
evening," remarked Mrs. Gorham; "we have invited him to dine with us."

"Good; I shall be glad to see the boy, and can acquit myself of my
obligation to his father at the same time. Hello, Mistress Patricia," he
added, catching the child in his arms. "What has my little tyrant been
up to?"

"Call me 'Lady Pat,'" she said, grandly. "_He_ named me that."

"Who did?" her father asked, his mind diverted from the previous
conversation.

"Mr. Sanford." Patricia rolled her eyes impressively. "Oh, he's the
grandest thing! He must be a prince in disguise."

"That isn't what his father calls him," laughed Gorham.

"What are you going to advise him?" Eleanor asked.

"I can't tell until I see him and discover how much imagination he has."

"Imagination?" his wife queried.

"Yes; is that a new idea to you? Ability never asserts itself to its
utmost unless fed by the imagination, and I don't know yet whether Allen
possesses either. Success in any line depends upon the extent of a man's
power of imagination."

"Then why don't poets make business successes? They have imaginative
ideas," argued Alice, thinking of her remarks upon this subject earlier
in the afternoon.

"True"--Gorham smiled at her earnestness--"great poets are inspired, but
rarely, if ever, do they apply those inspirations to practical purposes.
That is why they so seldom enter business, and still more rarely succeed
if they do."

His face sobered as the idea took firmer possession of him.

"I differ from the poet only in that I make use of my imaginative ideas
in solving the great business problems of the present and the future
instead of in forming rhymes and metres.