of the kind," Ella retorted, crisply. "That
boy, as you call him--and it isn't always the man with the biggest fists
that's got the most fight in him--is about as far above me as--as--"
she sat down on the floor, ponderously, beside the open bag, and
gesticulated with a hairbrush, at loss for a simile "as an eagle is
above a waddling old duck. No, I don't mean that, either, because I
never did think much of the eagle, morally. But you get me. Not that
he knows it, or shows it. Heyl, I mean. Lord, no! But he's got
something--something kind of spiritual in him that makes you that way,
too. He doesn't say much, either. That's the funny part of it. I do all
the talking, seems, when I'm with him. But I find myself saying things
I didn't know I knew. He makes you think about things you're afraid to
face by yourself. Big things. Things inside of you." She fell silent a
moment, sitting cross-legged before the bag. Then she got up, snapped
the bag shut, and bore it across the room to a corner. "You know he's
gone, I s'pose."

"Gone?"

"To those mountains, or wherever it is he gets that look in his eyes
from. That's my notion of a job. They let him go for the whole summer,
roaming around being a naturalist, just so's he'll come back in the
winter."

"And the column?" Fanny asked. "Do they let that go, too?"

"I guess he's going to do some writing for them up there. After all,
he's the column. It doesn't make much difference where he writes from.
Did you know it's being syndicated now, all over the country? Well, it
is. That's the secret of its success, I suppose. It isn't only a column
written about New York for a New York paper. It's about everything, for
anybody. It's the humanest stuff. And he isn't afraid of anything. New
York's crazy about him. They say he's getting a salary you wouldn't
believe. I'm a tongue-tied old fool when I'm with him, but then, he
likes to talk about you, mostly, so it doesn't matter."

Fanny turned swiftly from the dressing-table, where she was taking the
pins out of her vigorous, abundant hair.

"What kind of thing does he say about me, Ellen girl. H'm? What kind of
thing?"

"Abuse, mostly. I'll be running along to my own room now. I'll be out
for lunch, but back at four, for that airing Fenger's so wild to have
me take. If I were you I'd lie down for an hour, till you get your
land-legs." She poked her head in at the door again. "Not that you
look as if you needed it. You've got a differe