“Get me some hot tea, my dear,” gasped Miss Frenzy. She still shook and her voice was as the voice of a dying person. The fine raiment of courtesy and punctilious speech that she had all her life worn had been torn from her by her own fierce old hands; in her own gentle eyes she was hopelessly degraded. Yet she smiled triumphantly at the anxious young face of the girl as she proffered the steaming tea. “Young,” muttered Miss Frenzy, her eyes following the movements of the other. “Young.” At last she roused herself and went slowly toward the door of the little private room, the girl hurrying to assist her. She paused, took the dark young head between her wrinkled hands, and kissed it. “I called her a ‘worm,’ my dear,” said Miss Frenzy. “It was a regrettable circumstance, but she accused me of cruelties—cruelties?... I called her a ‘worm.’” The old shopkeeper’s eyes twinkled. “On the whole, I am glad I did so.” Later, when the roses came again and the two sat with their sewing in the little garden, Miss Frenzy cheerfully remarked upon the entire absence of rose-worms. “Without conceit,” she remarked—“without conceit, I should be inclined to say that the Lord has endorsed my activities.” She looked affectionately at the slender figure sewing near the honeysuckle and called attention to the young cherry-tree shooting up in green assurance. “My mystery!” announced Miss Frenzy. “Not planted by human hands. The seed doubtless dropped by a bird in flight. Whether the fruit will be sweet or bitter is to me a matter of pleasing conjecture.” BUSTER _By_ KATHARINE HOLLAND BROWN From _Scribner’s Magazine_ _Copyright, 1918, by Charles Scribner’s Sons._ _Copyright, 1919, by Katharine Holland Brown._ Lucien, Mrs. Bellamy’s impeccable chauffeur, brought me home from Mrs. Bellamy’s bridge that green-gold summer afternoon of 1914. Looking down from the cliff road, all Gloucester Harbor was a floor of rippled amethyst. When we turned into the forest drive the air breathed deep of pine fragrance, heady as new wine. “How few people are driving to-day, Lucien! Yet it’s so perfect—” “One driver approaches, mademoiselle.” Lucien’s solid gray shape bore hard on the wheel. The big car swerved, shot half-way up the bank. I screamed. Past us like a streak of white lightning tore a headlong white monster, muffler cut out, siren whooping. Its huge wheels grazed our hubs; with a roar, it shot round the curve, plunged down the steep grade toward Gloucester, and vanished. Its shriek rang back to us like the shriek of a lost soul. “Lucien! That car must have been making eighty miles an hour!” “Mademoiselle speaks truth.” Lucien, frankly shaken, took off his cap and wiped a very damp brow. “It is the car of the great Doctor Lake, he who is guest of Madame Hallowell, at Greenacres.” “Doctor Lake! That stodgy old specialist!” I was a bit shaken myself. “Nonsense. He never ventures out of a crawl.”