ed extravagance of a
night in a hotel, if one would explore it thoroughly and come home
possessed of all its illimitable treasures of wisdom and experience.

When Claude came to Edgewood for a Sunday, or to spend a vacation with
his aunt, he brought with him something of the magic of a metropolis.
Suddenly, to Rose's eye, Stephen looked larger and clumsier, his shoes
were not the proper sort, his clothes were ordinary, his neckties were
years behind the fashion. Stephen's dancing, compared with Claude's, was
as the deliberate motion of an ox to the hopping of a neat little robin.
When Claude took a girl's hand in the "grand right-and-left," it was as
if he were about to try on a delicate glove; the manner in which he
"held his lady" in the polka or schottische made her seem a queen. Mite
Shapley was so affected by it that when Rufus attempted to encircle her
for the mazurka she exclaimed, "Don't act as if you were spearing logs,
Rufus!"

Of the two men, Stephen had more to say, but Claude said more. He was
thought brilliant in conversation; but what wonder, when one considered
his advantages and his dazzling experiences! He had customers who were
worth their thousands; ladies whose fingers never touched dish-water;
ladies who wouldn't buy a glove of anybody else if they went bare-handed
to the grave. He lived with his sister Maude Arthurlena in a house where
there were twenty-two other boarders who could be seated at meals all at
the same time, so immense was the dining-room. He ate his dinner at a
restaurant daily, and expended twenty-five cents for it without
blenching. He went to the theatre once a week, and was often accompanied
by "lady friends" who were "elegant dressers."

In a moment of wrath Stephen had called him a "counter-jumper," but it
was a libel. So short and rough a means of exit from his place of power
was wholly beneath Claude's dignity. It was with a "Pardon me, Miss
Dix," that, the noon hour having arrived, he squeezed by that slave and
victim, and raising the hinged board that separated his kingdom from
that of the ribbon department, passed out of the store, hat in hand,
serene in the consciousness that though other clerks might nibble
luncheon from a brown paper bag, he would speedily be indulging in an
expensive repast; and Miss Dix knew it, and it was a part of his almost
invincible attraction for her.

It seemed flying in the face of Providence to decline the attentions of
such a gorgeous b