Lawson shrugged his shoulders. “It would, of course, be pleasanter for Myra if she hadn’t me on her mind, and Leverich has done his best, I suppose. I’m not groaning—just telling you the bare facts. Living ‘on suspicion’ is demoralizing in the long run, that’s all; one lives down to an opinion as well as up to it, you know. There’s never been anyone, since I was a child, to really believe in me, so there’s nobody to be disappointed.” “_I_ will believe in you,” said Dosia, with the vibrating tone of her emotion. Her clear eyes looked at his as if to convey strength and warmth and all that was uplifting straight to his heart. “You had better not.” “I will believe in you!” Her tone had even greater insistence. “I know what it is—myself—to be with those who do not care. You are not as other people think you! You can be good and noble. You can”—her voice sank to a whisper—“resist temptation. If one prays—it helps; I know that.” Her voice rose steadily again, after a tremulous silence: “You can never say again that no one believes in you, for I believe in you.” “And care?” asked Lawson. His eyes glittered and his face worked with some unusual emotion. “And care,” assented Dosia, with the same unwavering eyes and serious, childlike candor of tone. He stooped and gently pressed his lips to her hand as it lay upon her gown. “You are the very sweetest child! I—” He stopped abruptly, and walked away to the window. The next moment Mrs. Leverich was rustling into the room. If she suspected an interview too confidential, she showed nothing of it in her manner. She had come back to take her guest out driving, after all—the sun was shining. Dosia ran to get ready, tingling—was it from the exaltation or the excitement of this interview, with its unexpected compact? She trembled with the pathos of it all. She passed each phase of it rapidly before her mind, to convince herself that there was nothing in words or feeling, no, nor in that reverential homage of Lawson’s, that could be interpreted as disloyalty to the unknown to whom her future belonged. Mrs. Leverich was waiting with a magnificent wrap of velvet and fur for Dosia to put on in the carriage over her street costume. “I was sure you were not warm enough yesterday,” she explained. She leaned forward to call to the coachman: “James, you may drive first to Benning’s. We are going to get some chocolates to take with us, dear; I know girls always enjoy themselves more if there is a box of chocolates handy.” “Oh, Mrs. Leverich!” said Dosia gratefully. “And we will stop at the greenhouse and get some flowers for you to wear to-night at dinner; you know, George Sutton is coming. I want you to look particularly well.” “I don’t care to look particularly well for _him_,” objected Dosia, stiffening.