s
very cold out, isn't it?"

"It's grown colder since nightfall," said Maxwell.

He remembered her and she saw that he did, and this somehow promoted an
illogical sense of acquaintance with him.

"It seems," she ventured farther, "very unusual weather for the
beginning of February."

"Why, I don't know," said Maxwell, with rather more self-possession than
she wished him to have, so soon. "I think we're apt to have very cold
weather after the January thaw."

"That's true," said Louise, with inward wonder that she had not thought
of it. His self-possession did not comport with his threadbare clothes
any more than his neat accent and quiet tone comported with the
proletarian character she had assigned him. She decided that he must be
a walking-delegate, and that he had probably come on mischief from some
of the workpeople in her father's employ; she had never seen a
walking-delegate before, but she had heard much dispute between her
father and brother as to his usefulness in society; and her decision
gave Maxwell fresh interest in her mind. Before he knew who Louise was,
he had made her represent the millionnaire's purse-pride, because he
found her in Hilary's house, and because he had hated her for a swell,
as much as a young man can hate a pretty woman, when he saw her walking
up and down the platform at Hatboro'. He looked about the rich man's
library with a scornful recognition of its luxury. His disdain, which
was purely dramatic, and had no personal direction, began to scare
Louise; she wanted to go away, but even if she could get to her shoes
without his noticing, she could not get them on without making a
scraping noise on the hard-wood floor. She did not know what to say
next, and her heart warmed with gratitude to Maxwell when he said, with
no great relevancy to what they had been saying, but with much to what
he had in mind, "I don't think one realizes the winter, except in the
country."

"Yes," she said, "one forgets how lovely it is out of town."

"And how dreary," he added.

"Oh, do you feel that?" she asked, and she said to herself, "We shall be
debating whether summer is pleasanter than winter, if we keep on at this
rate."

"Yes, I think so," said Maxwell. He looked at a picture over the mantel,
to put himself at greater ease, and began to speak of it, of the color
and drawing. She saw that he knew nothing of art, and felt only the
literary quality of the picture, and she was trying compassionat