"Listen to him!" "That's the stuff, set it here!" The cards were shuffled away for the bottle and glasses. The window curtains were drawn tightly, the door was closed and the portière hung in stiff folds across it; the coal snapped in the grate and the young men settled down for the evening. But Frances was not winding up her own affairs so nearly to her mind. The professor had lain down his book as soon as the guest departed. "Daughter," he began uneasily, "I didn't know you knew Mr. Lawson." Frances looked at him in astonishment. "Why--how--" she stammered. "Somehow, he's different from most of the students here," her father went on, putting his half-framed opinion into words; "he's older and he looks a man of the world, and he's not over studious," he added a little sarcastically. Frances after her first start was listening quietly to his broken speech. "These older men," the professor went on, "if they don't come for good hard work, they--they are the most troublesome kind we have to deal with. The young fellows, now, they have their faults, but they are the faults of youth. When these older men graft their knowledge of the world to their students' folly--well--well--" he was silent for a moment. Frances, without the slightest wish to defend the absent, sat silent likewise. "He's rich too; his father owns immense lumber tracts in Oregon, and his people live in great style, and--I scarcely know--He's in none of my classes. But, somehow, he doesn't seem-- I wonder you invited him." "I didn't." "Didn't! Why--" "Oh, daddy, it sort of happened. I'm not anxious to have it happen any more." "Well, neither am I, now that I think of it. Going to bed?" "I'm sleepy as a cat--no! as the Sleeping Beauty!" saucily. "I believe you always are!" The professor never knew at what hour he crept to bed, but his daughter's sleepy-headedness was a constant jest. He never failed to pause at the threshold of her door and listen to the deep, long breaths of her slumber and to feel warmed to his heart's core to know she was there, his own daughter, the joy of his life. "Good night!" She leaned over him, rumpling his dark hair. "Why, there's the telephone! What can it be so late?" She was hurrying along the hall. "Hello!" The father turned to watch with lazy interest the lithe figure and bright face and bent head, as she stood, red lips pressed together, the receiver at her ear. "Ah!" she breathed ecstatically into the 'phone. "Where did you catch him?" "To-day!" "To-morrow!" "Eight o'clock?" "Yes, indeed!" "If father will let me," with one imploring glance fatherward. "Yes, in a moment, wait!" "Father, they are going to have a fox-hunt to-morrow--Orange Grove, you know--meet at eight o'clock. Mr. Payne bought the fox from a colored boy to-day, he has it out at his house. They are going to turn it loose on the hill. It's a big red fox, he says." She slipped down on the side of his chair. "Great Heavens! You don't want to go?"