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The person who has to have outside props to keep him straight must have been made mighty crooked at the start, and Lila's not like that." Christopher stooped and pulled Spy's ears. "That's as good a way to look at it as any other, I reckon," he remarked; "and now I've got to hurry the shoeing of the mare."

Then he asked. with a trifling hesitation: "How is Lila's cold?" A sudden light broke over old Jacob's face, and he nodded in his genial fashion. "Ah, bless her pretty eyes, I sometimes think she's too good to put her foot down on this here common earth," he said, "an' to think that only this mornin' she was wantin' to help Sarah wipe the dishes.

"It was his really conscientious desire to establish Lila's welfare above all things that had caused Chan Hung to become in some degree undecided when conversing with Ming-hi on the detail of the scheme; for, unaffected as the Mandarin himself would have been at the prospect of an honourable poverty, it was no part of his intention that the adorable and exceptionally-refined Lila should be drawn into such an existence.

Lila waited and waited; the instructor waited; everybody waited and waited, till Lila's knees ached so that she lifted her face and peeked. She peeked straight into those grim waiting eyes on the platform. Then the instructor said, "Miss Allan?" with the usual dreadful interrogative inflection, and Lila shook her head. She slid back into her seat with her cheeks as red as fire.

After dinner Lila pressed on with the others to the dancing in parlor J. The applause and admiration surrounding her made her look her prettiest and talk her wittiest, for Lila's nature was always one that throve best in an atmosphere of praise. She felt as if whirling through fairyland.

This was one of the precious privileges of having found a friend. She gazed at Bea with such an adorable half-wistful, half-joyful smile on her delicate face that Bea never quite forgot the sensation of realizing that it was meant wholly for her. The memory of it returned again and again in later days when Lila's exacting ways seemed beyond endurance.

"It is twenty years since I looked at you, and now you are taller than your father was, you say. I can feel that your hair is light, like his and like Lila's, too, since you are twins." A pretty, fragile woman, who was wrapping a shawl about the old lady's feet, rose to her full height and passed behind the Elizabethan chair."

"My eyes ache if I try to read," repeated Ellen slowly, "and there is an awfully interesting story over on the table." She stopped her drumming for a moment to listen to the steady scribble behind her. The little face with its round features so unlike Lila's delicate outlines took on a disconsolate expression.

"So it's all over," he announced gaily, "and Lila's married at last." "Then you're satisfied, I hope," rejoined Cynthia grimly, "now that you've dragged us down to the level of the Weatherbys and the Fletchers? There's nothing more to be said about it, I suppose, and you may as well come in to dinner."

As years passed on, infant faces and lisping voices came into the domestic circle, fresh little flowers in the floral garland of Mamita Lila's life. Alfred Royal, the eldest, was a complete reproduction, in person and character, of the grandfather whose name he bore. Rosa, three years younger, was quite as striking a likeness of her namesake.