"Thank you, Allan," he said, "for taking care of the runaway. I thought she was old enough to travel alone, but it seems I was mistaken. I'll have to send a nurse along hereafter." "Good-bye, Allan," said the Vision, holding out her hand, and Allan was quite shocked, when he took it, by its smallness and softness. [Illustration: "THE AFTERNOON PASSED HAPPILY."] "Good-bye," he answered, but his tongue dared not pronounce her name. He watched them until they disappeared in the darkness, then turned away across the yards, meditating anxiously whether a Being with a hand so small and soft, so evidently fragile, could long withstand the buffets of a world so rude and harsh as this one. * * * * * "Well, young lady," said Mr. Heywood, at the dinner-table that evening, "I hope you were sufficiently punished for your thoughtlessness in wandering away from your train." "It wasn't such terrible punishment, papa," answered Bess. "I had a very pleasant afternoon. I think Allan is just fine." "So do I," agreed her father promptly. "He's a nice boy." "And he knows such a lot," added Bess. "I felt a perfect booby." "Quite a salutary feeling for a young lady," nodded her father. "Especially for one who has always had an excellent opinion of herself." "Oh, papa!" protested Bess. "I'm not conceited!" "No, not that precisely," agreed her father; "but most girls, when they get to be about eighteen, and have all the boys making sheep's-eyes at them, begin to think that this world was made especially for them, and that nobody else has any right in it, except perhaps to hustle around and provide them with ribbons and chiffon ruffles. It's good for them to get a hint, now and then, that the world is really something more than a pedestal for them to stand on." Bess sighed, a little dismally. "I never understood before," she said, "how awfully I've been wasting my time." "If you never waste any more, my dear, you'll have nothing to regret. Most women don't wake up to the fact that they're wasting their time until they're middle-aged, and by that time they've fallen into such a habit of doing so that they can't change." "I believe," added Bess, thoughtfully, "that I'll ask Allan to the party I'm going to give next week." "Do, by all means," said her father, heartily. "It will do you good, and it won't hurt him." So it came to pass, a few days later, that the postman mounted the steps to the little Welsh cottage and left there a tiny envelope addressed to "Mr. Allan West." Mary received it, and turned it over and over.