erself. And here _she_ had the jolly idea pat
upon her tongue! I just blinked at her admiringly--didn't dare speak,
you know; afraid I'd break the thread of what's-its-name.

She went on telling me something about a lover's lute, and it was hard
not to speak _then_, for I did so want to ask what a jolly lute was. And
then some remark about specks in garnered fruit--here her line of
thought had been changed, I knew, by some remark of the gardener
outside: something about worms and the orchard. However, I just chirped
up a nod and listened as attentively as though she had gone right on.
She was busy with her hair now, but with her mind still on the worm,
murmured abstractedly:

"'That rotting inward slowly moulders all.'"

And just here, with a little clatter, her back comb struck the floor,
bounding to the other side of the pavilion. As I scrambled to get it,
her voice lifted through a choke of laughter:

"'It is not worth the keeping; let it go!'"

The idea!

I laughed as I caught the thing up and whirled, my hand outstretched to
lay it in her own. She was on her feet, pulling down her belt, and
paused to lift away a leaf that clung to her snowy skirt. And just here,
the gardener's voice lifted startlingly across the park to some one
distant and invisible:

"Better bring paris green, Jud; it's the only way we'll ever get rid of
'em," he bawled. "I see they're going after the leaves now, and they can
live on them and air. Pizen'll fix 'em, though!"

The comb outstretched, I stood staring at Frances, doubled over and
writhing. And then, with a long-drawn gasp that was half a screech, her
lithesome figure straightened, her head went back, and from her throat
there trilled the very joy of health and youth and happy days.

"Oh!" she gasped, her hand pressing to her side. And while I looked at
her anxiously, she went on pantingly, her eyes bright with tears:

"'But shall it? Answer, darling, answer no,
And trust me not at all or all in all.'"

"Jove!" I said delightedly, placing the comb in her outstretched hand
and pressing it--the hand, I mean, dash it! "I _do_, don't you know! I
trust you all in all!"

CHAPTER XXX

THE JUDGE FIXES "FOXY GRANDPA"

"But tell you, sir, he is _not_ my son!" The judge was bending over the
desk 'phone as I looked in a half hour later. His voice rose in a
crescendo of rage: "Wha--what's _that_? Do I want to speak with him?
Certainly _not_, sir--and I _won