scissors fell upon the cat dozing near. "Something is the matter or he
would never have come home in this boiling sun."

"What is it, dear?" she asked, as the middle-aged, slightly bent figure
toiled up the steps exhaustedly.

"Where is Gloria?" was Mr. McAndrew's reply, as he dropped with a sigh
of relief into one of the piazza chairs.

"Gone with Miss--I can't think of her name--the District Nurse. She
would go--you mustn't blame me. Ask about Ben if she wasn't the settest
little thing!"

"I was afraid so--felt it in my bones. Now, why," groaned the lawyer,
"must she have selected today? And here I've come up home at the risk of
my life all to no end! I wanted to make sure she wasn't poking round in
that miserable street today, of all days--and you have to tell me she
_is!_"

"You mustn't blame me," his wife repeated mildly. "You know yourself
when Glory's _set_--"

"Yes, but you ought to have been set, too! Why didn't you put your foot
down that she shouldn't go off to such a foolish place? No knowing what
mischief it has done!" worried a look as did her husband's. Then she
added, "If we had explained the whole thing to her at the start, it
would not have been so difficult. But how is anyone to tell her now? She
is so intense, and she's hardly more than a child to reason with. And in
the meantime she's gotten so many ideas into her head that she wouldn't
have had, maybe, if she had known the situation from the first, and