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54 ABBOTT'S MONTHLY

[[image: pencil drawing]]
[[caption]] Mammy Lou winked an eye in kindly understanding and led the way into the cabin, that even behind the palisade of trees bore many scars from semi-tropical storms. [[/caption]]

tested with all the piquance she could summon. Leroy, however, picked her up abruptly. 

"Is the happiest man on this side of the Jordan River. And you know why?"

She would have protested further, in fact, she started anew but Leroy's lips upon her own frustrated further attempt. The passing throng snickered in their sleeves at the silly girl who was Summers' latest conquest. And the girl in her sweet young way flushed hotly. Summers scowled at them and strangely enough something in the opposite direction commanded their attention, and Summers, mind you, was always a welcome guest to all the affairs of the elite. Shirley fussed about for a moment tidying your person. She broke the little silence with a supreme effort to shield a hurt.

"So my leaving makes you happy?"

If Leroy Summers had been struck across the face at the moment he could not have looked more hurt, but like a shot it fled. He looked and spoke suavely, however the smile was gone. He had seen what Shirley failed to hide. 

"I'm always happy by your side, dear. I think I could be, if I knew my hours were numbered! But I will not think of your leaving me! Tell me, Shirley, that you were joking, yesterday. Tell me now-now or I'll kiss you to death!" Lee's face was abloom with his most irresistible smile. Lee usually dispelled weighty problems with that same smile. Of course Shirley had noticed that way of his, and when he made a gesture to take her again in his arms she warded him off by jesting acquiescence. Nevertheless the look in her eyes told him that what she had said before was true. 

There was an open golf tourney on the Pine Hill Course that day and the guests of the hotel were already swarming across the field to the clubhouse. Leroy knew that Shirley took no interest in golf. Neither did he, and it seemed she were applying that knowledge. 

"Lee, dear, were you intended to play golf with an oar?" In her question was the strenuous attempt to regain her gaiety. Leroy looked upon her in a quaint way all his own. She knew not whether to expect a kiss or a spank from him. 

"You pert little darling." Lee kindly remonstrated. The sweeping curve of coal black moustache, as his lips moved artfully, deliberately, and contrasted with his glistening teeth. "I'm apt to do anything with you ruling heart and mind alike. But seriously, Shirley, I wonder if you would like to go canoeing again on the Little River as we did the day we met. Remember? We can even go to Mammy Lou's for a dinner."

Shirley Essington hesitated a moment before she consented but she soon lit up with enthusiastic anticipation, almost as a girl in school on the eve of a picnic. 

Summers charged a languorous service-boy with the instructions to phone Mammy Lou that they were under way. "Just tell her it's Lee or Mistah Lee as she prefers to call me." He flicked a large coin in the boy's hand and started him on his errant with an energetic whack on the shoulders. There was mute interrogation in Shirley's eyes when he again turned to her. "Now, now, Shirley, I didn't mean to play rough. I was only giving the fellow a start." Lee was mockingly pleading. He was at his best, for to Shirley's mind teasing, cajoling

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for January, 1931 55

[[image: black and white photograph]]
[[caption]] Stanislas, Paris [[/caption]]

A Citizen of France

Although he was born in Martinique, West Indies, Professor Isaac Beton is one of the most valuable and respected citizens of France. During the late war he was an instructor in the French Army school of Artillery and took up much of his time teaching gunnery to white American officers. In peace time he is Professor of Classic languages at St. Louis College, a branch of Sorbonne University in Paris.