ght. Then she went
slowly into the drugstore which had struck George as a possible source
of stimulant for himself.

"Please let me have a few drops of aromatic spirits of ammonia in a
glass of water," she said, with the utmost composure.

"Yes, ma'am!" said the impressionable clerk, who had been looking at her
through the display window as she stood on the corner.

But a moment later, as he turned from the shelves of glass jars against
the wall, with the potion she had asked for in his hand, he uttered an
exclamation: "For goshes' sake, Miss!" And, describing this adventure to
his fellow-boarders, that evening, "Sagged pretty near to the counter,
she was," he said. "If I hadn't been a bright, quick, ready-for-anything
young fella she'd 'a' flummixed plum! I was watchin' her out the
window--talkin' to some young s'iety fella, and she was all right
then. She was all right when she come in the store, too. Yes, sir; the
prettiest girl that ever walked in our place and took one good look at
me. I reckon it must be the truth what some you town wags say about my
face!"

Chapter XXVIII

At that hour the heroine of the susceptible clerk's romance was engaged
in brightening the rosy little coal fire under the white mantelpiece
in her pretty white-and-blue boudoir. Four photographs all framed
in decorous plain silver went to the anthracite's fierce
destruction--frames and all--and three packets of letters and notes in
a charming Florentine treasure-box of painted wood; nor was the box, any
more than the silver frames, spared this rousing finish. Thrown heartily
upon live coal, the fine wood sparkled forth in stars, then burst into
an alarming blaze which scorched the white mantelpiece, but Lucy stood
and looked on without moving.

It was not Eugene who told her what had happened at Isabel's door.
When she got home, she found Fanny Minafer waiting for her--a secret
excursion of Fanny's for the purpose, presumably, of "letting out"
again; because that was what she did. She told Lucy everything (except
her own lamentable part in the production of the recent miseries) and
concluded with a tribute to George: "The worst of it is, he thinks he's
been such a hero, and Isabel does, too, and that makes him more than
twice as awful. It's been the same all his life: everything he did was
noble and perfect. He had a domineering nature to begin with, and she
let it go on, and fostered it till it absolutely ruled her. I never saw