spoke. "Well, what about him, papa?" she asked, calmly enough.

"Well, we could hardly----" Adams paused, frowning heavily. "We
could hardly expect he wouldn't hear something about all this."

"Yes; of course he'll hear it, papa."

"Well?"

"Well, what?" she asked, gently.

"You don't think he'd be the--the cheap kind it'd make a
difference with, of course."

"Oh, no; he isn't cheap. It won't make any difference with him."

Adams suffered a profound sigh to escape him. "Well--I'm glad of
that, anyway."

"The difference," she explained--"the difference was made without
his hearing anything about Walter. He doesn't know about THAT
yet."

"Well, what does he know about?"

"Only," she said, "about me."

"What you mean by that, Alice?" he asked, helplessly.

"Never mind," she said. "It's nothing beside the real trouble