sad eyes and a wistful mouth."

The picture moved him strongly. More than ever he was persuaded that
his day would come. Even might come the day when it would be his lot
to lighten the sorrow of those eyes and appease the wistfulness of
that tender mouth. He was less sure about this. He had been unable
to learn if Beulah Baxter was still unwed. Silver Screenings, in
reply to his question, had answered, "Perhaps." Camera, in its
answers to correspondents, had said, "Not now." Then he had written
to Photo Land: "Is Beulah Baxter unmarried?" The answer had come,
"Twice." He had been able to make little of these replies,
enigmatic, ambiguous, at best. But he felt that some day he would at
least be chosen to act with this slim little girl with the sad eyes
and wistful mouth. He, it might be, would rescue her from the
branches of the great eucalyptus tree growing hard by the Fifth
Avenue mansion of the scoundrelly guardian. This, if he remembered
well her message about hard work.

He recalled now the wondrous occasion on which he had travelled the
nearly hundred miles to Peoria to see his idol in the flesh. Her
personal appearance had been advertised. It was on a Saturday night,
but Merton had silenced old Gashwiler with the tale of a dying aunt
in the distant city. Even so, the old grouch had been none too
considerate. He had seemed to believe that Merton's aunt should have
died nearer to Simsbury, or at least have chosen a dull Monday.

But Merton had held with dignity to the point; a dying aunt wasn't
to be hustled about as to either time or place. She died when her
time came--even on a Saturday night--and where she happened to be,
though it were a hundred miles from some point more convenient to an