the city you may lend me enough money to take me up-town. And to-morrow
morning my brother will pay you back."

He gave in because he had to.

"You are much more lenient than I deserve. Really, you ought to stick me
good and hard for my awkwardness. It would serve me right."

"I am considering the motive," she said almost wistfully, he fancied.
"We have drifted very far from all those quiet anchorages of courtesy
and helpfulness. If we lived simpler lives--"

He smiled at the turn she was giving it.

"Are you, too, bitten with the fad of the moment, 'the simple life'?" he
asked. "Let me assure you that it is beautiful only when you can look
down upon it from the safe altitude of a comfortable income. I know,
because I've been living it for the past two years."

She looked as if she were sorry for him.

"That is rank heresy!" she declared. "Our forefathers had the better of
us in many ways, and their simpler manner of living was one of them.
They had time for all the little courtesies and kindnesses that make
life truly worth living."

Ford's laugh was boyishly derisive.

"Yes; they certainly had plenty of time; but they didn't have much else.
Why, just think, for a moment, of what our own America would be if