Perhaps it was his virile personality radiating confidence, security, or perhaps it was Gus Briskow's shining face that told the story; whatever the fact, Ma Briskow uttered a thin, broken wail, then walked into those open arms and laid her head upon Gray's breast. She clung to him eagerly and the tears she had been blinking so hard to restrain flowed silently. "Oh-n-h! We ain't goin'away!" she said. "We ain't--goin' away!" "Of course not. Gus misunderstood. The manager merely wanted you to move--into a larger, finer suite, and he is positively distressed at the thought of your leaving. The poor man is dashing about collecting an armful of roses for you and Allie. He wants to come in person and apologize." There was another sound and Gray looked up to see Allie standing in the doorway to her bedroom; with one hand she clutched the jamb, the other was pressed to her bosom; she was staring at him as at an apparition. The girl was quite colorless, there was a look almost of fright in her eyes, and when he came toward her she swayed weakly. Her hands, when he took them, were icy; it shocked him to see how worn, how weary she had grown. It was several hours later. In the parlor of the new suite, a spacious, sunny room, fragrant with flowers and cheerful with brilliant cretonnes, Gray and Briskow were talking. Allie and her mother could be seen in their bedrooms putting away the last of their belongings. Gray's eyes had been drawn, at frequent intervals, to the younger woman, for the change in her became the more amazing the more he observed her, and he was still striving to reconcile this creature to the picture he had held in his mind. In a few months Allie had become almost a stranger to him. It was a marked and yet a subtle change that had come over her; she was anything but a polished young woman, of course; nevertheless she had been modified, toned down, vastly improved, and not until her first queer emotion at seeing him had disappeared was the full extent of that improvement manifest to the newcomer. He wondered why she had acted so oddly at first; surely she did not fear him. No, Allie's face at this moment was alight with supreme joy and satisfaction; she appeared to be quite as happily at her ease as Ma, who was singing steadily in a thin, rusty voice. Gray sent the father away on some pretext, finally; then he called to Allie: "Come in here and talk to me. I am a guest and I demand entertainment." He observed with silent approval her carriage as she entered the room and accepted the chair he offered her. Faint trace of the nester's daughter here. "I want a good chance to look at you." Allie colored faintly. "I guess I'm not much to look at." "Hm-m! You don't in the least resemble that girl I found hoeing in the garden. You are terribly thin." "Spinach!" said Allie. "Dieting, eh?" "Yes. Spinach and water and a rubber suit. Sometimes I have a party and eat a whole soda cracker."