as long as I live. Nobody ever holds out against you. Please, Uncle
George! I'll never come to you for anything else in the world if you'll
help me this time. And I won't drink another drop of anything you don't
want me to drink--I don't care what father or anybody else says. Oh,
you've GOT to go to her!--I can't stand it any longer! Every time I
think of Kate hidden away over there where I can't get at her, it drives
me wild. I wouldn't ask you to go if I could go myself and talk it out
with her--but she won't let me near her--I've tried, and tried; and Ben
says she isn't at home, and knows he lies when he says it! You will go,
won't you?"

The smoke from his uncle's pipe was coming freer now--most of it
escaping up the throat of the chimney with a gentle swoop.

"When do you want me to go?" He had already surrendered. When had he
ever held out when a love affair was to be patched up?

"Now, right away."

"No,--I'll go to-night,--she will be at home then," he said at last, as
if he had just made up his mind, the pipe having helped--"and do you
come in about nine and--let me know when you are there, or--better
still, wait in the hall until I come for you."

"But couldn't I steal in while you are talking?"

"No--you do just as I tell you. Not a sound out of you, remember, until
I call you."

"But how am I to know? She might go out the other door and--"