the office; sorry not to find you in."

"Mrs. Roberts, allow me?" And he wheeled one of the easy chairs to the
spot where that lady was standing.

"How well he enters into the thing," said Gracie Dennis to herself,
looking on in admiration at this young man, who, still so young, was
adapting himself to circumstances that might well have embarrassed older
heads than his. He plunged into talk with the boys, making them answer
questions. He had come but a few moments before from Mark Calkins',
stopped there with a message from Dr. Everett; and these boys knew Mark
and Sallie and the worthless father, and all the more or less worthless
neighbors who ran in and out, and young Ried had a dozen questions to
ask. His quick-wittedness, and the ease with which he made talk to these
young men who lived in such an utterly different world from himself,
surprised his hostess very much.

Even she did not know to what an exalted pitch his enthusiasm and
excitement reached; though he had flashed a pair of most appreciative
eyes on her when she gave him her invitation for the evening. Here was
actually his sister Ester's darling scheme being worked out before his
eyes! Not only that, but he was being called upon to help. Ester had
wanted him to grow up to undertake just such efforts as these; and only
last week they had seemed to him so altogether good and noble and so
impossible to try. Yet here he was helping try them! No wonder Alfred
Ried could talk.

It had been determined in family council that Mr. Roberts must absent
himself. He was in the house, indeed--no further away than the library,
ready for call in event of an emergency; but it was judged that another