Molly Make-Believe

aired and brown-eyed," he

quick-brightening faces at the really gorgeous Spring-like flame of jonquils, but in a whole chilly, wearisome hour t

anton could not altogether help

to be s-p-a-n-k-e-d," he chuckled as

l impersonal comments on the weather and the tennis and the annual orange crop, there was actually one whole, individual, intimate sentence that distinguished the lett

kept to my original purpose of not announcing my engagement until after my Southern trip. Yo

food for his day's thoughts, but the mental ind

did his mood bri

Even across the chin-tickling tops of those yellow jonquils this morning, I almost laug

tle Dog came h

clock that morning. "She evidently isn't lame at all," he argued, "or little, or red-haired, or anything. Probably her name isn't Molly, and presumably it isn't even '

o., but this one bore a distinctly sealed inner envelope, directed, "For Molly. Personal." And the m

eartily that he had not been so inquisitive, for the only entertainme

pple reddens

e our Eden-

rhymed sickeningly through his brain all night long

on their front pages with the striking, large-type announcement that "One of Boston's Fairest Debutantes Makes a Da

it had been fairly branded into his eyes, he saw the vision of Cornelia's heroic young face battling above the horrible, dragging-down depths of the bay. The bravery, the risk, the ghastly chances of a less fortunate ending, sent shiver after shiver through his already tortured senses. All the loving thoughts in his nature fairly leaped to do tribute to Cornelia. "Yes!" he reasoned, "Cornelia was made like that! No matter w

e was very glad that she had learned to be a good swimmer. Never indeed since her absence had she spoken of missing Stanton. Not even now, after what was inevitably a heart-racking adventure, did she yield her lover one single iota of the information which he had a lover's right to claim. Had she been frightened, for instance-way down in the bottom of that serene heart of hers had she been frightened? In the ensuing desp

ughts with the one persistent, brutally nagging question: After all, was a woman's unden

ion began to dig into Stanton's brain, throwing much dust and confusi

tely painted empty dishes offered to a starving person. More and more "Molly's" whimsical messages fed him and nourished him and joyously pleased him like some nonsensically fashioned candy-box that yet proved brimming full of real food for a real man. Fight as he would against it, he began to cherish a sense of furious annoyance that Cornelia's failure to provide for him had so thrust him out, as it were

r, etc., etc. Surely they are merely presents from you

rains, then!" the "company" had persisted with undue sharpne