"You did? How did you manage that?" "Why, you see, Jimmy Canter knows her, and he asked Harriet and me to supper to meet her, and I declare she nearly made me die laughing—you know she's a real sweet girl-Jimmy says she——” "Who chaperoned you?" asked Miss Leigh, as she began to put on her gloves.

Chaperon? My dear, that's where the fun came in-we didn't have any chaperon. I pretended that Harriet and the Count were married and called her Countess, and she was so flattered at being given the title that she was pleased to death-though you know, she's really dead in love with Jimmy Canter and he hardly looks at her."

“I'm afraid I have to go now," said Miss Leigh, "my father expects me to come for him," she glanced at a jewelled watch. She had stiffened up slightly.

"Well, of course, you'll come?"
"To what?"

"To our ball-that's what it is, you know, though it's for a charity and we make others pay for it. Why shouldn't they? I haven't decided yet what charity. Harriet wants it to be for a home for cats. You'd know she'd want that now, wouldn't you? She'll be in there herself some day. But I'm not going to let it go for anything she wants. She's claiming now that she got it up, and I'm just going to show her who did. I'm thinking of giving it to that young preacher you met in the country two years ago and got so interested in 't you got Dr. Capon to bring him here as his assistant."

"You couldn't give it to a better cause," said Miss Leigh. "I wonder how he is coming on?"

we are

"I guess you know all right. But Pa says," pursued Miss McSheen without heeding further the interruption, "we ruining the poor and the reason they won't work is that we are always giving them money. You know they're striking on our lines-some of them? I haven't decided yet what to give it to."

"I'll tell you what!" said Miss Leigh suddenly, "I'll come if you'll give the proceeds to Mr. Marvel for his poor people." "Done! See there! what did I tell you! I thought you weren't so pious for nothing all on a sudden"

"Milly, you're a goose," said Miss Leigh, picking up her sunshade.

"I'm a wise one, though-what was it our teacher used to tell us about the geese giving the alarm somewhere? But I don't care. I'm the treasurer and pay the bills. Pa says the man that holds the bag gets the swag. Bring your father. We'll get something grand out of him. He always gives to everything. I'll call him up and tell him to be sure and come. You know they've landed the deal. Pa says every one of them has made a pile. Your father might have made it too if he'd come in, but I think he was fighting them or something, I don't quite understand it-anyhow it's all done now, and I'm going to hold Pa up for the pearl necklace he promised to give me. There's a perfect beauty at Setter & Stoneberg's, only seventeen thousand, and I believe they'll take ten if it's planked down in cold cash. Pa says the way to get a man is to put down the cold cash before him and let him fasten his eye on it. If he's a Jew he says he'll never let it go. I tell him by the same token he must be a Jew himself; because he holds on to all the money he ever lays his eye on."

"Can I take you downtown anywhere?" inquired Miss Leigh, in a rather neutral voice.

"No, my dear, just let me fix my hat. I have to go the other way. In fact, I told the Count that I was going up to the park for a little spin, and he asked if he couldn't come along. I didn't want him, of course -men are so in the way in the morning, don't you think so? Is that quite right?" She gave her head a toss to test the steadiness of her hat.

"Quite," said Miss Leigh.

"Well, good-by. I'll count on you then. Oh! I tell you-among the entertainments, the Count is going to perform some wonderful sleight-of-hand tricks with cards. My dear, he's a magician! He can do anything with cards. Heavens! it's after one. The Count-good-by-goodby."

And as Miss Leigh entered her victoria the young lady rushed off, up the street, straining her eyes in the direction of the park.

That night "the ball," as Miss McSheen called it, came off and was a huge success, as was duly chronicled in all the morning papers next day with an elaboration of description of millinery in exact proportion

to the degree of prominence of the wearer in the particular circle in which the editor or his reporter moved or aspired to move. Mrs. Argand stood first in "Wine-colored velvet, priceless lace," of the sort that reporters of the female sex deem dearest, and "diamonds and rubies" that would have staggered Sinbad, the sailor. Miss McSheen ran her a close second, in "rosecolored satin, and sapphires," spoken of as "priceless heirlooms." Miss Leigh shone in "chiffon, lace, and pearls of great price." So they went columns-full, all priceless, all beautiful, all superlative, till superlatives were exhausted, and the imagination of the reporters ran riot in an excess of tawdry color and English.

Among the men especially lauded were first, a certain Mr. James Canter, son and partner of "the famous Mr. Canter, the capitalist and financier," who gave promise of rivalling his father in his "notorious ability," and, secondly, a Count Pushkin, the "distinguished scion of a noble house of international reputation who was honoring the city with his distinguished presence, and was generally credited with having led captive the heart of one of the city's fairest and wealthiest daughters." So ran the record. And having nothing to do, I read that morning the account and dwelt on the only name I recognized, the young lady of the white chiffon and pearls and wondered who the men were whose names stood next to hers.

ΧΙ

ELEANOR LEIGH

MISS LEIGH also read the papers that morning and with much amusement till in one of them—the most sensational of all the morning journals-she came on an article which first made her heart stop beating and then set it to racing with sheer anger. To think that such a slander could be uttered! She would have liked to make mince-meat of that editor. He was always attacking her father.

A little later she began to think of the rest of the article! What was the truth? Did they have the right to stop the train and hold it back? This was what a writer denied in a series of papers which a friend of hers, a young clergyman who worked

among the poor, had sent her and which the press generally was denouncing.

She had for some time been reading these papers that had been appearing in the press from time to time, signed by a person who was generally spoken of as "a Jew," but who wrote with a pen which had the point of a rapier, and whose sentences ate into the steely plate of artificial convention like an acid. One of the things he had said had stuck in her memory. "As the remains of animalculæ of past ages furnish, when compressed in almost infinite numbers, the lime-food on which the bone and muscle of the present race of cattle in limestone regions are built up, so the present big-boned race of the wealthy class live on the multitudinous class of the poor.

The summer before she had met the writer of these articles and he had made an impression on her which had not been effaced. She had not analyzed her feelings to ascertain how far this impression was due to his classical face, his deep, luminous eyes, and his impassioned manners, yet certain it is that all of these had struck her.

Perhaps I should give just here a little more of Miss Eleanor Leigh's history as I came to know of it later on. How I came to know of it may or may not be divulged later. But, at least, I learned it. She was the daughter of a gentleman who, until she came and began to tyrannize over him, gave up all of his time and talents to amassing a fortune. He had showed abilities and ambition at college "back East," where he came from, and when he first started out in life, it was in a region and amid surroundings which were just becoming of more than local importance as they a little later grew under the guidance of men of action like himself, to be of more than sectional importance. Flinging himself into the current which was just beginning to take on force, he soon became one of the pilots of the development which, changing a vast region where roamed Indians and buffalo into a region of cities and railways, shortly made its mark on the Nation and, indeed, on the world, and he was before long swept quite away by it, leaving behind all the intellectual ambitions and dreams he had ever cherished and giving himself up soul and body to the pleasure he got out of his success as an organizer and administrator of large enterprises. Wealth at first was

important to him, then it became, if not unimportant, at least of secondary importance to the power he possessed. Then it became of importance again-indeed of supreme importance; for the power he wielded was now dependent on wealth and great wealth. His associates were all men of large interests, and only one with similar interests could lead them.

As he looked back on it later it seemed a feverish dream through which he had passed. Its rewards were undeniable: luxury, reputation and power beyond anything he had ever conceived of. Yet what had he not sacrificed for them! Everything that he had once held up before his mind as a noble ambition; study, reading, association with the great and noble of all time; art and love of art; appreciation of all except wealth that men have striven for through the ages; friendship-domestic joy-everything except riches and the power they bring. For as he thought over his past in his growing loneliness he found himself compelled to admit that he had sacrificed all the rest. He had married a woman he loved and admired. He had given her wealth and luxury instead of himself and she had pined and died before he awakened to the tragic fact. He had grieved for her, but he could not conceal from himself the brutal fact that she had ceased years before to be to him as necessary as his business. She had left him one child. Two others had died in infancy, and he had mourned for them and sympathized with her; but he never knew for years, and until too late, how stricken she had been over their loss. The child she had left him had in some way taken hold on him and had held it even against himself. She had so much of himself in her that he himself could see the resemblance; his natural kindness, his good impulses, his wilfulness, his resolution and ambition to lead and to succeed in all he undertook.

In appearance she was like her mother, only he thought her fairer-as fair as he had thought her mother in the days of his first devotion; and her deeper eyes and firmer features were an added beauty; the well-rounded chin was his own. Her eyes, deep with unfathomable depths, and mouth, firm even with its delicate beauty, had come from some ancestor or ancestress who, in some generation past, had faced

life in its most exacting form with undaunted resolution and haply, had faced death with equal calm for some belief that now would scarcely have given an hour's questioning. So, when she grew each year, developing new powers and charm and constancy, he began to find a new interest in life, and to make her more his companion and confidante than he had ever made her mother. He left his business oftener to see her than he had left it to see her mother; he took her oftener with him on his trips, and took more trips, that he might have her company. She sat at the head of his table, and filled her place with an ability that was at once his astonishment and his pride.

At one time, as she changed from a mere child to a young girl, he had thought of marrying again, rather with a view to giving her a guide and counsellor than for any other purpose. Her storminess, however, at the mere suggestion, and much more, her real grief, had led him to defer the plan from time to time, until now she was a young lady, and he could see for himself that she needed neither chaperon nor counsellor. He sometimes smiled to think what the consequences would have been had he taken to wife the soft, kindly, rather commonplace lady whom he had once thought of as his daughter's guardian. A dove in the clutches of a young eagle would have had an easier time.

One phase alone in her development had puzzled and baffled him. She had gone off one spring to a country neighborhood in another State, where she had some old relative on her mother's side. Mr. Leigh had been called to Europe on business, and she had remained there until well into the summer. When she returned she was not the same. Some change had taken place in her. She had gone away a rollicking, gay, pleasureloving, and rather selfish young girl-he was obliged to admit that she was both wilful and self-indulgent. Even his affection. for her could not blind his eyes to this, and at times it had given him much concern, for at times there was a clash in which, if he came off victor, he felt it was at a perilous price-that, possibly, of a strain on her obedience. She returned a full-grown woman, thoughtful and self-sacrificing and with an aim, he was glad it was not a mission-and as her aim was to be useful, and

she began with him, he accepted it with contentment. She talked freely of her visit; spoke warmly, and indeed, enthusiastically, of those she had met there. Among these were a young country preacher and a friend of his, a young Jew. But, though she spoke of both with respect, the praise she accorded them was so equal that he dismissed from his mind the possibility that she could have been seriously taken with either of them. Possibly the Jew was the one she was most enthusiastic over, but she spoke of him too openly to cause her father disquietude. Besides, he was a Jew. The preacher she plainly respected most highly, yet her account of his appearance was too humorous to admit a serious feeling for him, even though she had gotten him called to be one of Dr. Capon's assistants. What had happened was that the girl, who had only "lain in the lilies and fed on the roses of life," had suddenly been dropped in an out-of-the-way corner in a country neighborhood in an old State, where there were neither lilies nor roses of the metaphorical kind, though a sufficiency of the real and natural kind, with which nature in compensatory mood atones to those who have of the metaphorical sort but thistles and brambles and flinty soil.

When she first landed there, after the very first excitement of being thrown into a wholly new situation, among strangers whom she had always regarded much as she had regarded geographical places in distant lands, was over, she found herself, as it were, at a loss for occupation. Everything was so quiet and calm. She felt lost and somewhat bored. But after a little time she found occupation in small things, as on looking closely she discovered beauties in Nature which her first glance had failed to catch. The people appeared so strange, so simple, so wholly different from all whom she had known; the excitements and amusements and interests of her life in the city, or at summer watering-places, or in travelling, were not only unknown to them-as unknown as if they were in another planet, but were matters of absolute indifference. Their interest was in their neighbors, in the small happenings about them; and occurrences an hundred miles away were as distant to them as though they had taken place in another era. Among the few notabilities

in this rural community was a young clergyman whom she always heard spoken of with respect as much respect, indeed, as if he had been a bishop. What "Mr. Marvel thought" and what he said was referred to, or was quoted as something to be considered-so much so that she had insensibly formed a picture in her own mind of a quite remarkable looking and impressive person. When, at last, she met John Marvel what was her amusement to discover in place of her young Antinous, a stout, strapping young fellow, with rather bristly hair, very near-sighted and awkward, and exceedingly shy, a person as far from a man of the world as a stout, country-bred cart-horse would be from a sleek trick-pony. His timidity in her presence caused her endless amusement, and for lack of some better diversion she set herself to tease him in every way that her fertile brain could devise.

Visiting the young clergyman at the time was a friend who came much nearer being in appearance what Eleanor had imagined John Marvel to be: a dark, slender young man with a classical face, but that its lines were stronger and more deeply graven, and unforgettable eyes. He had just come to visit Mr. Marvel and to get a needed rest, John Marvel said. He had been a worker among the poor, and his views were so different from any that Eleanor Leigh had ever heard as to appear to be almost shocking. He was an educated man, yet he had lived and worked as an artisan. He was a gentleman, yet he denounced vehemently the conditions which produced the upper class. But an even greater surprise awaited her, when he announced that he was a Jew. While, at first, the broad-shouldered young clergyman fled from her presence with a precipitation which was laughable, it was not long before he appeared to have steeled himself sufficiently against her shafts of goodnatured ridicule to be able to tolerate her presence, and before a great while had passed her friends began to tease her on the fact that wherever she went Mr. Marvel was pretty sure to appear. One of her old cousins, half-rallyingly and half-warningly, cautioned her against going too far with the young man, saying, “Mr. Marvel, my dear, is too good a man for you to amuse yourself with, and then fling away. What is simply the diversion of an hour

"Why, I am interested in him," declared the girl, laughing. "Why, he tells me of all the old sick women and cats in the parish and I have an engagement to go around with him and see some old women to-morrow. You ought to see some that we went to see the other day!"

"I know, my dear, but you must not make fun of his work. He is happy in it and is accomplishing a great deal of good, and if you should get him dissatisfied

"

"Oh, no, indeed, I gave him some money last week for a poor family to get some clothes so that they could come to church. They were named Banyan. They live near the mines. The whole family were to be christened next Sunday, and what do you suppose they did? As soon as they got the clothes they went last Sunday to a big baptizing and were all immersed! I was teasing him about that when you heard me laughing at him."

"The wretches!" exclaimed her cousin. "To think of their deceiving him so!"

"I know," said the girl. "But I think he minded the deception much more than the other. Though I charged him with being disappointed at not getting them into his fold, really, I don't think he minded it a bit. At least, he said he would much rather they had gone where they would be happy."

"Now, Mr. Marvel's friend, Mr. Wolffert, is a different matter. He appears quite able to take care of himself."

"Quite," said Miss Leigh dryly. "But, my dear," said her 'cousin, lowering her voice, "they say he is a Jew." "He is," said Eleanor. "You know it?"

"Yes, Mr. Marvel told me, and he told me so himself."

"Told you himself! Why, I thought-! How did he come to tell you?"

"Why, I don't know. We were talking and I said something foolish about the Jews -about some one being 'as rich and stingy as a Jew,' and he smiled and said, 'Are all Jews rich and stingy?' And I said, 'If they have a chance,' and he said, 'Not always. I am a Jew and I am not rich.' Well, I thought he was fooling, just teasing

me so I went on, and do you know he is not only a Jew, but Mr. Marvel says he is rich, only he does not claim his money because he is a Socialist-Mr. Marvel says he could go home to-morrow and his father would take him and lavish money on him; but he works-works all the time among the poor."

"Well, I must say I always liked him," said her cousin.

"But he isn't such good fun to tease as Mr. Marvel-he is too intense. Mr. Marvel does get so red and unhappy-looking when he is teased."

'Well, you have no right to tease him. He is a clergyman and should be treated with respect. You wouldn't care to tease your rector in town-the great Dr. what is his name?"

"Oh! wouldn't I? Dr. Bartholomew Capon. Why, he is one of the greatest beaux in town. He's always running around to see some girl-ogling them with his big blue eyes."

"Eleanor!" exclaimed her cousin reprovingly.

"Why, he'd marry any one of the Canter girls who would have him, or

"Eleanor, don't be profane."

The old lady looked so shocked that the girl ran over and kissed her, with a laugh. "Why, I've told him so." "Told him? You haven't!"

"Yes, I have. I told him so when he tried to marry me."

"What! Eleanor, you are incorrigible. You really are. But do tell me about it. Did he really court you? Why, he's old enough to be your

"Grandfather," interrupted the girl. "That's what I told him, substantially."

"Served him right, too. But he must be a fine preacher from what my old friend, Pansy Tibbs, once wrote me. Did you ever meet Pansy Tibbs? She and her sister live in your city. They went there years ago to press a claim they had to a large fortune left them by their father, Colonel Tibbs, who used to be a very rich man, but left his affairs somewhat complicated I gather from what Pansy writes me, or did write, for she does not write very often now. wish you'd go and see them when you go back."

I

"I will," said Eleanor. "Where do they live?"