long time. The day after it, New York seemed more
brilliant to him than it had ever been. In the afternoon he rode down
to the Battery. It was a mild winter day, with a haze in the atmosphere
that softened all outlines and gave an enchanting appearance to the
harbor shores. The water was silvery, and he watched a long time the
craft plying on it--the businesslike ferry-boats, the spiteful tugs, the
great ocean steamers, boldly pushing out upon the Atlantic through the
Narrows or cautiously drawing in as if weary with the buffeting of the
waves. The scene kindled in him a vigorous sense of life, of prosperity,
of longing for the activity of the great world.

Clearly he must do something and not be moping in indecision.
Uncertainty is harder to bear than disaster itself. When he thought of
Evelyn, and he always thought of her, it seemed cowardly to hesitate.
Celia, after her first outburst of enthusiasm, had returned to her
cautious advice. The law was much surer. Literature was a mere chance.
Why not be content with his little success and buckle down to his
profession? Perhaps by-and-by he would have leisure to indulge his
inclination. The advice seemed sound.

But there was Evelyn, with her innocent question.

"Would the law pay you?" Evelyn? Would he be more likely to win her by
obeying the advice of Celia, or by trusting to Evelyn's inexperienced
discernment? Indeed, what chance was there to win her at all? What had
he to offer her?

His spirits invariably fell when he thought of submitting his
pretensions to the great man of Wall Street or to his worldly wife.
Already it was the gossip of the clubs that Lord Montague was a frequent
visitor at the Mavicks', that he was often seen in their box at the
opera, and that Mrs. Mavick had said to Bob Shafter that it was a
scandal to talk of Lord Montague as a fortune-hunter. He was a most
kind-hearted, domestic man. She should not join in the newspaper talk
about him. He belonged to an old English family, and she should be civil
to him. Generally she did not fancy Englishmen, and this one she liked
neither better nor worse because he had a title. And when you came to
that, why shouldn't any American girl marry her equal?

As to Montague, he was her friend, and she knew that he had not
the least intention at present of marrying anybody. And then the
uncharitable gossip went on, that there was the Count de l'Auney, and
that Mrs. Mavick was playing the one off against the