way to Kirk's studio he could not understand; but there she certainly
was, and Percy was willing to bet the twenty dollars which, despite the
excitement of the moment, he had forgotten to extract from Kirk in a
hurried conversation at the door, that her presence there was not known
and approved by her father.

The only reasonable explanation that Kirk was painting her portrait he
dismissed. There had been no signs of any portrait, and Kirk's
embarrassment had been so obvious that, if there had been any such
explanation, he would certainly have given it. No, Ruth had been there
for other reasons than those of art.

"Unchaperoned, too, by Jove!" thought Percy virtuously, ignorant of
Mrs. Lora Delane Porter, who at the time of his call, had been busily
occupied in a back room instilling into George Pennicut the gospel of
the fit body. For George, now restored to health, had ceased to be a
mere student of "Elementary Rules for the Preservation of the Body" and
had become an active, though unwilling, practiser of its precepts.

Every morning Mrs. Porter called and, having shepherded him into the
back room, put him relentlessly through his exercises. George's groans,
as he moved his stout limbs along the dotted lines indicated in the
book's illustrated plates, might have stirred a faint heart to pity.
But Lora Delane Porter was made of sterner stuff. If George so much as
bent his knees while touching his toes he heard of it instantly, in no
uncertain voice.

Thus, in her decisive way, did Mrs. Porter spread light and sweetness
with both hands, achieving the bodily salvation of George while, at the
same time, furthering the loves of Ruth and Kirk by leaving them alone