tation, where the
train, just starting, throbbed out the flame-shot steam into the white
moonlight.

"The most beautiful thing in New York--the one always and certainly
beautiful thing here," said March; and his wife sighed, "Yes, yes." She
clung to him, and remained rapt by the sight till the train drew near,
and then pulled him back in a panic.

"Well, there ain't really much to tell about her," Fulkerson resumed
when they were seated in the car. "She's an invention of mine."

"Of yours?" cried Mrs. March.

"Of course!" exclaimed her husband.

"Yes--at least in her present capacity. She sent me a story for the
syndicate, back in July some time, along about the time I first met old
Dryfoos here. It was a little too long for my purpose, and I thought
I could explain better how I wanted it cut in a call than I could in
a letter. She gave a Brooklyn address, and I went to see her. I found
her," said Fulkerson, with a vague defiance, "a perfect lady. She was
living with an aunt over there; and she had seen better days, when she
was a girl, and worse ones afterward. I don't mean to say her husband
was a bad fellow; I guess he was pretty good; he was her music-teacher;
she met him in Germany, and they got married there, and got through her
property before they came over here. Well, she didn't strike me like a
person that could make much headway in literature. Her story was well
enough, but it hadn't much sand in it; kind of-well, academic, you know.
I told her so, and she understood, and cried a little; but she did the
best she could with the thing, and I took it and syndicated it. She kind
of stuck in my mind, and the first time I went to see the Dryfooses
they were stopping at a sort of family hotel then till they could find
a house--" Fulkerson broke off altogether, and said, "I don't know as I
know just how the Dryfooses struck you, Mrs. March?"

"Can't you imagine?" she answered, with a kindly, smile.

"Yes; but I don't believe I could guess how they would have struck you
last summer when I first saw them. My! oh my! there was the native earth
for you. Mely is a pretty wild colt now, but you ought to have seen her
before she was broken to harness.

"And Christine? Ever see that black leopard they got up there in the
Central Park? That was Christine. Well, I saw what they wanted. They
all saw it--nobody is a fool in all directions, and the Dryfooses are
in their right senses a good deal of the time. Well, to cut