ou
are--"

"Frightfully clever, too? Don't believe any such slander, I beg of
you, Mrs. Graham! It is not fair to blast a man's reputation like that
at the very outset. What chance would there be for me in society, if
such a rumor got abroad?"

"Well," responded Mrs. Graham, "there's a great deal of truth in what
you say. It's very nice of course to be lively and good company, and
all that; but when it comes to right down cleverness, and particularly
bookish cleverness, it does stand in a man's way socially. At the
smartest houses, they don't want to be talked down, and still less to
be written up afterward. I don't feel so myself. I just _dote_ on
literary people; but then I am called positively blue."

"What was there to do at Nepaug?" asked Mr. Graham, who had not
followed the intricacies of his wife's remarks. "Any good shooting?"

"I'm afraid not, unless you rode a cow and shot at a goat," Flint
answered, and was rather relieved to have the conversation drift away
on to the comparative merits, as hunting-grounds, of the different
sections of the country. The subject was not specially exciting to
Flint; but it was at least impersonal, and he felt an unaccountable
aversion to hearing any further discussion of Winifred Anstice.

The diners had advanced to the meat course,--Graham having
complimented Flint so far as to duplicate his order, with the addition
of an ice for Mrs. Graham and Pommery Sec for the party,--when a noise
was heard further up the avenue. The sound drew nearer, and the notes
of a brass band tooted a lively tune which re-echoed from the walls of
the Brunswick, and drew a crowd from the benches of the square.
Several people in the restaurant left their places, and came to the
window to investigate the commotion. Flint himself rose, napkin in
hand, and stood under the blaze of the lights, looking out.

"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Graham, raising her lorgnon as the procession
came in sight, "it's that horrid Salvation Army!"

"Bless me! so it is," assented her husband, adjusting his eye-glass.
"Pretty girl, though, that--in the front row with the tambourine."

Flint's eyes followed his companion's, and saw Nora Costello walking a
few paces in advance of her comrades, the electric light from the
northern edge of the square falling on her pale face and rings of
dark, curling hair.

The tambourines jangled discordantly; the brass instruments were out
of tune; the rag-tag crowd surged about, some jeeri