“Mrs. Barnett,” I said, fervently, “you are an awful humbug.”

She cocked her head a little to one side, with a pretty motion she sometimes unconsciously affects.

“Out with it,” she said.  “Explain yourself so that I may repent and be forgiven.”

“There is nothing to be forgiven you,” I declared.  “I would like to place you on a pedestal and direct the proper worshipping of you.  None but the most superior kind of a woman can take a fool chap and turn his folly around so that he may be rather pleased with it.  I expected a good wigging from you, and deserve it.”

“That sort of thing is one of the most important functions and privileges of a woman,” she answered.  “Men need it all the time for the smoothing out of their ruffled feelings.”

“The men shouldn’t allow them to get ruffled,” I said.

“There speaks the wise man,” she laughed, “nor should the sea permit itself to get stormy.  Were you not explaining to me the other day that the wind allows the climbing up of the sap in swaying trees, and that the stirring of the waters keeps them pure and fit to maintain the unending life beneath them?”

“It seems to me that I did.”

“Well, I suppose that a little storminess now and then serves some useful purpose in a man, and if he only can have a woman about him, to see that it doesn’t go too far, it will do him a lot of good.  You should get married.”

“Of course I ought to,” I replied, “and moreover I would give everything in the world if only....”

I interrupted myself, considering that since Dora Maclennon and I are not engaged, and that she merely represents to me a longing which I often consider as a hopeless one, I have no right to discuss her, even with this dear kind woman.

“You have already found the girl?” asked Mrs. Barnett, her eyes filled with the interested sympathy always shown by the gentler sex in such matters.

“I have found her,” I replied, “but she is very far away from me, and it is just a case of having to grin and bear it.”

Then her blue eyes opened widely, and with an exquisitely gentle touch she placed her hand on my arm.

“You poor dear boy!” she said, with the sweetest little inflection of voice, that held a world of friendliness and compassion.

“I am afraid you will think I am in a perpetually disgruntled state,” I told her.  “Nothing of the kind!  I eat the squarest kind of square meals every day and really enjoy the work here.  If it were not a bit trying, from time to time, it wouldn’t be worth a man’s while to tackle it.”

“That is the way to talk,” approved Mrs. Barnett.

So we shook hands again and I left her, thinking what a splendid thing it must be for a fellow to have such a tower of gentle strength to lean upon.

I went over to the Jelliffes’ and cut down the plaster dressing.  The broken leg is doing very well, as was to be expected, and I was much pleased.