The old lawyer caressed his smoothly shaven chin and gazed out at Joyce Lavillotte from under his shaggy eyebrows, as from the port-holes of a castle, impressing her as being quite as inscrutable of aspect and almost as belligerent. She, flushed and bright-eyed, leaned forward with an appealing air, opposing the resistless vigor of youth to the impassiveness of age.

"It is not the crazy scheme you think it, Mr. Barrington," she said in that liquid voice which was an inheritance from her creole ancestry, "and I do not mean to risk my last dollar. You know I have means that cannot be touched. Why should you be so sure I cannot manage the Works—especially when Mr. Dalton is so capable and——"

The lawyer uttered something between a grunt and a laugh.

"It's Mr. Dalton who will manage it all. What do you know of the Works?"

"No, he will not, Mr. Barrington. The factory, of course, is his province, but the village shall be mine. You think, because I am not yet twenty-two, that I do not know my own mind, but you forget how long I have been motherless; and a girl has to think for herself when her mother goes."

"But your father?"

"You knew my father." The tremble in the young voice hardened into a haughty note, and she drew back coldly.

Mr. Barrington heaved a perplexed sigh.

"I know I ought to oppose you to the death, even! You'll never have such another chance to sell out, and the sum safely invested in bonds and mortgages, would keep you like a princess."

"I don't want to be kept like a princess. I don't choose to make use of that money for myself, Mr. Barrington—I can't. There is enough of my mother's for my few needs. I was brought up simply, and I am glad! If I sell the works, as you desire, I shall still give the proceeds away. Had you rather I built a hospital, or founded a girl's college, or set up a mission to the South Pole? I'd rather build a town on rational principles."

The haughtiness had melted now, and the smile with which she ended was hard to resist. A younger man would have yielded sooner, but Mr. Barrington was a sharp, practical financier, and furthermore, he had what he believed to be the best good of his client at heart. She was of age and, under the conditions of her late father's will, absolute mistress of a great fortune. It was aggravating to find she had no intention of sitting down to enjoy this in a comfortable, lady-like manner, but must at once begin to develope schemes and plans which seemed half insane to him. Why should this new generation of women be so streaked with quirks and oddities, so knobby with ideas, when they might be just as helpless and charming as those of his own day, and give themselves blindly to the guidance of astute men like himself? It was maddening to contemplate. Here was one who could be clothed in purple and fine linen and fare sumptuously every day, without so much as lifting her little white finger, and she was planning an infinity of care and worriment, possibly the loss of everything, rather than a calm acceptance of her rosy fortune. It fairly disgusted him!

His vis-À-vis, watching him with her keen dark eyes, read these thoughts as if his brain had been a printed page before her, and in spite of herself laughed outright; in his very teeth—a merry little peal as spontaneous as a sunburst.

"Pardon me!" she begged, trying vainly to control herself, "but you did look so hopeless, Mr. Harrington. I know I'm a nuisance to you, and I appreciate that this solicitude for my interests is more than I've any right to expect when I disappoint you so. If you were not so old a friend I wouldn't feel so guilty. Yet in spite of all—I am resolved."

She said the last three words quite gently, with a level gaze that met his own frowning one and held it. She did not nod nor bridle, and her air was almost deprecating in its modesty, but he felt the battle was over and she was the victor. She would be her own mistress, girl that she was, and he could not turn her. He leaned back in a relaxed attitude and asked in a changed voice, "Will you then care to retain the services of Barrington and Woodstock?"

There was not a hint of triumph in tone or manner as she answered quickly,

"Most certainly, if I may. There will be a constant need of your advice, I know. And now, Mr. Barrington, shall we settle the matter of salary, or do you prefer to make a separate charge for each occasion?"

His smile was rather grim as he arose and took down a bundle of papers and documents, slipped them rapidly from hand to hand, then laid them in order before him.

"I think the salary might be best for you," he answered.

"So do I," blithely, "for I shall probably bore you to death!"

This matter having been satisfactorily adjusted, the lawyer, with a rather ironical air, observed,

"If I am not trenching upon forbidden ground, might I ask a few more questions concerning this scheme of yours?"

"As many as you like, sir."

"Thank you. I take it for granted you will retain Mr. Dalton as manager?"

"Yes."

"And most of the employees as at present?"

"All, for aught I know."

"And you speak of building up a town—just what does that mean to your own mind?"

"I'll try to tell you. You know at present there are only the buildings for the Works, the branch track and engine sheds, and the few rows of uncomfortable cottages for the families of the men. There is no school, no church, no library, no meeting-place of any kind, except the grocery store and saloon; and those bare, staring rows of mean houses, just alike, are not homes in any sense of the word. I want to add all such comforts—no, I call them necessities—and more."

"More? As what, for instance?"

"Well,"—she drew a long breath and settled back in her chair with a nestling movement that made the hard man of business feel a certain fatherly yearning towards her, and at last said slowly, "I can't quite explain to you how I have been led to it, but this thought has become very plain to me—that every real need of humanity must (if this world be the work of a perfect Being) have its certain fulfilment. Most people think the fulfilment should only be looked for in another and better world. I think it might, and ought, to come often in this, and that we alone are to blame that it does not."

"Wait! Let me more fully understand. You think every need—what kind of needs?"

"All kinds. Needs of body, mind, and soul."

"You think they can be fully gratified here?"

"I think they might be. I believe there is no reason, except our own ignorance, stupidity, prejudice, and greed, that keeps them from being gratified here and now."

"But child—that would be Heaven!"

"Very like it—yes. And why shouldn't we have Heaven here, sir? God made this world and pronounced it good. Would the Perfect One make a broken circle, a chain with missing links, a desire without its gratification? That would be incomplete workmanship. When either my body or my soul calls out for anything whatsoever, somewhere there is that thing awaiting the desire. Why relegate it to another world? There must be complete circles here, or this world is not good."

"But, my dear girl, these are rather abstruse questions for your little head."

"I did not think them out, Mr. Barrington. They grew out of—circumstances—and some one a good deal wiser than I made me understand them. But they grew to stay, and I can't get rid of them. That is one of the thoughts, ideas—what you will, and this is the other. A man can do little alone, but men can do anything working together in perfect sympathy."

"Oh, co-operation—yes!"

"Co-operation, as you say. With perfect co-operation and a perfect communication, so that each need may be answered readily—these are the ideas I wish to work out."

"Work out—how?"

"In my village."

He frowned at her in puzzled petulance.

"I don't understand a word."

"And it's almost impossible to make one understand, sir. Just wait and watch the working of my plan. Mr. Barrington, have you ever had a surplus of anything that you would gladly share with another, if you knew exactly where it was most needed?"

"Yes," smiling suddenly, and glancing into a corner where was a heaped-up, disorderly looking set of shelves from which the books had overflowed upon the floor. "I was thinking, the other day, that if I knew just the right young lawyer I would be glad to give him some of those Reports."

"That's it! That's what I mean. Somewhere, some struggling lawyer is longing for books and cannot get them; you have too many and are longing to be rid of them. There are the two halves of a complete whole; don't you see?"

"Certainly—if they could be brought together."

"Well, I want to try and bring them together."

"In your village? But how? Do you imagine you can play Providence to a whole settlement, and complete all its half circles?"

"No, sir, I've no thought of that. I simply want to make it possible for them to play Providence to each other. But it would take all day to tell you just how. You have a clue now, and suppose you watch me work it out. I shall probably come to you often for advice, and I must not take up more of your time to-day."

She arose, with a brisk movement, and began fastening her fur collar, in spite of his detaining gesture.

"No, no," she laughed, "don't tempt me! When I mount my hobby it carries me fast and far. Save yourself from its heels. But I will come again."

He laughed with a hearty note.

"You know when to dismount, evidently, and just in time to whet one's curiosity, too. I may be asking to ride it myself, next. Well, do come again—but wait! What's the name of your new town?"

"I've been puzzling over that, Mr. Barrington. I wanted in some way to have my family name connected with it, and yet not so distinctly as to be suggestive, either. There is the English of it—of course it's a free translation—that might do. I don't care to hint at my ideas in the name, so perhaps——"

"Lavillotte?" he questioned. "What is the English of it."

"'The little town,' but Littletown——"

"Why not drop the w?"

"And make it Littleton? Well, why not? I rather like that! It seems impersonal; it explains nothing."

"Except its smallness," laughed the lawyer, "and that would be apparent anyhow, I suppose."

She laughed with him.

"I'm afraid so. Yes, I believe it will do. Littleton! It really suits me."

"There! Didn't I tell you? I've named your model town already; I shall be galloping side by side with you before you know it. Off with you now, hobby and all!"

But she passed out smiling and satisfied. When Mr. Barrington took that tone she knew he was the old friend again, and not the legal adviser; and much as she respected the lawyer, she far preferred the friend, to-day.