anatory
smile that took in all the group: "Ladies' faces are so much alike that,
'pon my soul, unless there is something distinguished about them, I
don't know whether I know them or not. I depend on them to tell me;
fortunately they never forget gentlemen."

Miss Roberts's face elongated into a freezing stare. Annie stood there
in a sort of stupor till Hunt said briskly:--

"Well, Annie, are you going to introduce this lady to me?"

As she almost inaudibly pronounced their names, he effusively extended
his hand, which was not taken, and exclaimed:--

"Lou Roberts! is it possible? Excuse me if I call you Lou. Annie talks
of you so much that I feel quite familiar."

"Do you know, Miss Roberts," he continued, seating himself close beside
her, "I 'm quite prepared to like you?"

"Indeed!" was all that young lady could manage to articulate.

"Yes," continued he, with the manner of one giving a flattering
reassurance, "Annie has told me so much in your favor that, if half is
true, we shall get on together excellently. Such girl friendships as
yours and hers are so charming."

Miss Roberts glanced at Annie, and seeing that her face glowed with
embarrassment, smothered her indignation, and replied with a colorless
"Yes."

"The only drawback," continued Hunt, who manifestly thought he was
making himself very agreeable, "is that such bosom friends always tell
each other all their affairs, which of course involve the affairs of all
their friends also. Now I suppose," he added, with a knowing grin and
something like a wink, "that what you don't know about me is n't worth
knowing."

"You ought to know, certainly," said Miss Roberts.

"Not that I blame you," he went on, ignoring her sarcasm. "There's no
confidence betrayed, for when I 'm talking with a lady, I always
adapt my remarks to the ears of her next friend. It prevents
misunderstandings."

Miss Roberts made no reply, and the silence attracted notice to the
pitiable little dribble of forced talk with which Annie was trying to
keep the other gentleman's attention from the exhibition Hunt was making
of himself. The latter, after a pause long enough to intimate that he
thought it was Miss Roberts's turn to say something, again took up the
conversation, as if bound to be entertaining at any cost.

"Annie and I were passing your house the other day. What a queer little
box it is! I should think you 'd be annoyed by the howlings of that
church next door. The ------