I did not recall you then," he said, plainly flustered.

"You only add to the mystery," said Louise. "You will enlighten me, of course?"

He whirled his chair about so that, sitting back on the arm of it, he could face her.

"It is simple enough," he explained, with a hesitancy which Louise did not fail to note. "When the lad with the telegram came through the dining car, calling out your name, I could not fail, with that startling reminder, to remember——" He broke off as if reluctant to proceed.

"Yes?" put in Louise, a bit proddingly.

"Well, I could not fail to remember your father's daughter," he said in a low tone, obviously striving to regain some ease of manner.

"You know my father?" said Louise, her sense of the mystery of it all increasing rather than abating.

"Yes," he replied, still struggling, as Louise could see, to conquer a trouble that was visible on his features. "I am your father's attorney. I know your mother quite well, too. But this is the first time I have seen you since you were a little girl in pigtails and highly-starched skirts." He strove to make his laugh sound natural and easy, but it was a failure. Some worry, as to the nature of which Louise could of course not even guess, was in his voice as well as on his face.

Louise impulsively held out her hand.

"The mystery is cleared," she said, brightly, "and it is delightful to meet so old a friend, no matter how oddly. Won't you sit down and tell me all about my father and my mother and myself and yourself and—and everybody? Or is it permissible for one to cross-examine so solemn and cautious a person as an attorney?"

He sat down in the chair facing hers and studied, constrainedly, the pattern of the cap which he held out before him. Then he glanced at his watch.

"I am leaving the train at Peekskill," he said, "so there is not much time. You are to be home for the holidays?"

"For the holidays and for all time," she replied with a certain eagerness. "You have visited my mother's home? Because, you know, I never have." She had not meant to say that so baldly, and she was sorry for the slip as soon as the words were out. "It is on Riverside Drive. Therefore it must be lovely; the view, at any rate. It is lovely, isn't it?"

He deliberately evaded the question.

"You are not returning to school at all?" he pointedly counter-questioned her instead. "Does your mother know this? I hope I don't seem inquisitive. But I am really interested in knowing."

"You trap me into a confession," replied Louise, smiling. "I simply announced to my mother that I was through with school, and here I am on my way home. I am hoping that she will not be excessively angry with me. Do you think she will be?"

Louise was finding him decidedly difficult, in spite of her efforts to put him at his ease. He became so immersed in cogitations which Louise could see were of the troubled sort that he seemed scarcely to listen to what she was saying.

"You have not answered my question, you know, Mr.—Mr.—you see I do not even know your name," said Louise, after a pause, pretending to be aggrieved.

"Oh, pardon the rudeness, won't you?" he said, hastily. "Blythe is my name—John Blythe. And forgive me for not having caught your question, Miss Treharne. You don't mind asking it again?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Louise, appeased, but still curious as to the cause of the perturbation he had exhibited ever since he had brought her the telegram, and which had become more pronounced since she had told him that she was on her way to her mother's home to remain there. She had not failed to notice his quite manifest unwillingness to speak of her mother. Not of a prying nature, she concluded, without framing the thought in words, that, if he had a reason for that unwillingness, it was decidedly his privilege to keep the reason to himself. But her curiosity as to her father was not so easily repressed. She had not heard him spoken of—her mother forbade the subject—for many years, nor had he ever communicated with her directly; but her childish recollections of him were very sweet. She could not resist the temptation to speak of him to this newly-revealed friend. Why should she not, she thought, since he seemed to be so well acquainted with her parents—and was her father's attorney besides?

"Mr. Blythe," she found herself saying in a tone of unusual hesitation for her, a young woman of perfect frankness, "I feel that I may ask you about my father, seeing that you know—well, everything concerning him and my mother and—myself. It has been so many, many years since I have even heard him mentioned. Where is he? When did you see him last?"

"He lives in Hawaii, Miss Treharne—I saw him in Honolulu a few years ago," replied Blythe, promptly enough.

Louise pondered. There was nothing specific she wanted to ask about her father. But she considered that Blythe had not told her very much.

"Is he—well, nice?" she asked him.

Blythe, disturbed as he was, could not help but smile at the naïve question. But he sobered before he replied.

"He is almost, if not quite, the finest man I ever knew," he said. "I hope to be allowed to tell you all about him some time. I shall be writing to him presently. Tut! Here is Peekskill. I am dropping off here for a few hours," and he thrust his arms into his overcoat.

"You will send my love to my father in your letter?" said Louise, her eyes slightly filmed, touching him upon the sleeve. He looked gravely down upon her; her words touched him keenly.

"I am glad you have asked me to do that, Miss Treharne," he said. "And he will be more than glad—depend upon that. Goodbye—not for very long, I hope. I am overjoyed to have come upon you again—especially at this time," and he took her two hands in his huge palms for an instant and was gone.

"'Especially at this time'—I wonder what he meant by that?" thought Louise. He waved at her as he passed beneath her car window. She was conscious that his smile in doing so was slightly forced; an instant before he caught sight of her through the window she had noticed that his face was clouded with worry.

An hour later Louise was weaving her way through the rushing, holiday-chattering crowd toward the exit gate at the Grand Central station. Peering toward the gate, and able, with her unusual height, to see over the heads of the hurrying women and most of the men, she espied her mother, looking somewhat petitely stodgy beside the stately Laura, gazing rather wearily through the iron lattice. "I think I see myself being sent to bed without any supper," whimsically thought Louise, considering, as she drew nearer, her mother's bored expression. Louise was glad Laura was with her mother; when a mere growing girl she had become gratefully familiar with Laura's self-styled "ameliorating knack." She had become very fond of her mother's handsome, superbly-capricious but sunny-natured friend before being packed off to school; and now her eyes became slightly blurred at the thought that Laura had remembered her and had thought enough of her to be with her mother at her home-coming.

"Here is our blossomy, bronze-haired Boadicea!" Louise heard Laura say as she was taken into the older woman's arms and heartily kissed. Then Laura thrust her away with assumed annoyance. "But, minx, you are taller than I am; a full inch, maybe two, taller! How do you ever expect me to forgive you that, child?" and she smiled, drawing Louise toward her again, and hugged her once more.

Louise's mother brushed the girl's cheek with her lips, her daughter bending toward her.

"You are grotesquely tall, aren't you, dear?" said Mrs. Treharne, not very good-naturedly. Her petulance over Louise's return was by no means allayed; and her masseuse had told her that evening that she had gained two pounds in a week! "You will have to get clothes that will reduce your shocking stature." Then, swept by a momentary compunction, "You are well,