"And a pippin she is too! Talk about clever, Charlie! By Jove, there's a girl that makes a fellow use his cocoa all the time, let me tell you!" Charles sat down heavily at his writing-table, and lit a cigarette. Mary Wing managed her affairs well, indeed. He spoke with mysterious bitterness:-- "You _are_ blossoming out! If anybody'd told me last year that you'd be praising one of the new highbrow sisters, I'd have kicked him downstairs for a liar." "When a girl can look like that, my boy--" "Developing into a regular man-flirt too, aren't you? Last I heard of you, you were driving up Washington Street with Miss Flower." Instead of resenting the odious epithet, Donald's face was seen to assume a pleased smirk. "Ho!--had your spies on me, have you? Why, did we pass you to-day?" [Illustration: "HO!--HAD YOUR SPIES ON ME, HAVE YOU?"] Charles's heart seemed to leap a little. "Why, no," he said, sweetly. "I was speaking of one day last week. So you stole another drive to-day--you sly rascal!" "Don't know that you'd call it driving, exactly. Where'd that brother of hers dig the little four-wheeler, d'you s'pose? I thought that kind were extinct, same as the Dodo--" "Why, I think it's a very nice little car, Donald! Small, old-fashioned, yes--but very comfortable and--easy-going. I've--ah--had a--a number of pleasant drives in it. The real trouble is," said Charles, with immense carelessness, "she honestly doesn't know how to manage it very well as yet. And I, of course, don't know how to teach her--unfortunately." Having seated himself in Judge Blenso's chair, Donald was lighting, with a lordly air, one of Judge Blenso's cigars; the Judge himself being at his club, through lack of interest in the Studio. Extinguishing his match by waving it languidly back and forth, the youth said, with a faint reminiscent smile:-- "Well, I gave her a pretty good lesson this afternoon, far as that goes. Had a very fairish time, too. Nice little girl, she is." The author gazed, with a sort of nervous incredulity. He laughed hurriedly. "Nice!--well, I should say so! She's--she's charming! You'll have to look pretty sharp if you want any more drives there--too much competition! But, of course, she may not be _bookish_ enough, to suit your new taste--" "Oh, bookish, no. She's not that sort. I'll tell you what your little friend is, Charlie," said the young engineer, with an air of insufferable conceit. "She's what _I_ call a womanly woman."