ed when things turn out badly, or people are
wicked or foolish, are you?"

"No, certainly not. I expect it."

"And you were disappointed in me to-day. Therefore, it must be that I
was doing something you knew was right and good. You see?" She leaned
a little closer to him, smiling angelically. "Ah, Mr. Arp," she cried,
"I know your secret: you ADMIRE me!"

He rose, confused and incoherent, as full of denial as a detected
pickpocket. "I DON'T! Me ADMIRE? WHAT? It's an ornery world," he
protested. "I don't admire any human that ever lived!"

"Yes, you do," she persisted. "I've just proved it! But that is the
least of your secret; the great thing is this: YOU ADMIRE MR. LOUDEN!"

"I never heard such nonsense," he continued to protest, at the same
time moving down the walk toward the gate, leaning heavily on his
stick. "Nothin' of the kind. There ain't any LOGIC to that kind of an
argument, nor no REASON!"

"You see, I understand you," she called after him. "I'm sorry you go
away in the bitterness of being found out."

"Found out!" His stick ceased for a moment to tap the cement. "Pooh!"
he ejaculated, uneasily. There was a pause, followed by a malevolent
chuckle. "At any rate," he said, with joy in the afterthought, "you'll
never go walkin' with him AGAIN!"

He waited for the answer, which came, after a time, sadly. "Perhaps
you are right. Perhaps I shall not."

"Ha, I thought so! Good-night."

"Good-night, Mr. Arp."

She turned toward the lighted house. Through the windows nearest her
she could see Mamie, seated in the familiar chair, following with happy
and tender eyes the figure of Eugene, who was pacing up and down the
room. The town was deadly quiet: Ariel could hear the sound of
footsteps perhaps a block away. She went to the gate and gazed a long
time into the empty street, watching the yellow grains of light, sieved
through the maples from the arc lights on the corner, moving to and fro
in the deep shadow as the lamp swung slightly in the night air.
Somewhere, not far away, the peace was broken by the screams of a
"parlor organ," which honked and wailed in pious agonies (the intention
was hymnal), interminably protracting each spasm. Presently a woman's
voice outdid the organ, a voice which made vivid the picture of the
woman who owned it, and the ploughed forehead of her, above the
nose-glasses, when the "grace-notes" were proudly given birth. "Rescue
the Perishing" was the