John H. Martin (A) & Editha T. Leonard (W); 1Oct76; R643260.

" A generous sob rose in Editha's throat for the humility of a man, so very nearly perfect, who was willing to put himself below her.

And you believe it's a holy war, Editha?"

" "Oh, I know that, Editha.

"Why didn't he stay to dinner?" "Becausebecausewar has been declared," Editha pronounced, without turning.

What she arrived at in speech was: "Well, I guess you've done a wicked thing, Editha Balcom.

But when they mounted the veranda steps he did not wait for a larger audience; he poured the story out upon Editha alone.

Editha called, vanishing.

But we must provide for contingencies, Editha.

I came to tell Editha, but I hadn't got round to it.

" Editha determined not to be hurt, but to write again quite as if the answer had been all she expected.

George's father had settled there after the Civil War, as so many other old soldiers had done; but they were Eastern people, and Editha fancied touches of the East in the June rose overhanging the front door, and the garden with early summer flowers stretching from the gate of the paling fence.

It was very low inside the house, and so dim, with the closed blinds, that they could scarcely see one another: Editha tall and black in her crapes which filled the air with the smell of their dyes; her father standing decorously apart with his hat on his forearm, as at funerals; a woman rested in a deep arm-chair, and the woman who had let the strangers in stood behind the chair.

The seated woman turned her head round and up, and asked the woman behind her chair: "Who did you say?" Editha, if she had done what she expected of herself, would have gone down on her knees at the feet of the seated figure and said, "I am George's Editha," for answer.

Then Editha's father said, in his public will-now-address-a-few-remarks tone: "My name is Balcom, ma'amJunius H. Balcom, of Balcom's Works, New York; my daughter" "Oh!"

the seated woman broke in, with a powerful voice, the voice that always surprised Editha from Gearson's slender frame.

"So, you're Editha Balcom," she sighed.

" Editha saw now where George's irony came from.

"Very sick," Editha said, with self-pity.

" The voice seemed to compassionate Editha, and it was time.

The tears began to run down Editha's face; she had not wept till then; but it was now such a relief to be understood that the tears came.

She dropped her eyes, which she had raised with her voice, and glared at Editha.

[Illustration: "SHE GLARED AT EDITHA.

It had come to that confidence which is rather apt to grow between artist and sitter, and Editha had told her everything.

Well!" "I think," Editha said, magnanimously, "she wasn't quite in her right mind; and so did papa.