is bedroom, donning evening dress for some
function.

"That's my cousin, Marian Lindsay," he answered. "She _is_ rather
nice-looking, isn't she. Lives in Croyden now--used to live up the
river at Chiselhurst. Didn't you ever chance across her when you were
in Croyden?"

"No," I said. "If I had I wouldn't have forgotten her face."

"Well, she'd be only a kid then, of course. She's twenty-six now.
Marian is a mighty nice girl, but she's bound to be an old maid. She's
got notions--ideals, she calls 'em. All the Croyden fellows have been
in love with her at one time or another but they might as well have
made up to a statue. Marian really hasn't a spark of feeling or
sentiment in her. Her looks are the best part of her, although she's
confoundedly clever."

Peter spoke rather squiffily. I suspected that he had been one of the
smitten swains himself. I looked at the photo for a few minutes
longer, admiring it more every minute and, when I heard Peter coming
out, I did an unjustifiable thing--I took that photo and put it in my
pocket.

I expected Peter would make a fuss when he missed it, but that very
night the house in which he lived was burned to the ground. Peter
escaped with the most important of his goods and chattels, but all the
counterfeit presentments of his dear divinities went up in smoke. If
he ever thought particularly of Marian Lindsay's photograph he must
have supposed that it shared the fate of the others.

As for me, I propped my ill-gotten treasure up on my mantel and
worshipped it for a fortnight. At the end of that time I went boldly
to Peter and told him I wanted him to introduce me by letter to his
dear cousin and ask her to agree to a friendly correspondence with me.

Oddly enough, I did not do this without some reluctance, in spite of
the fact that I was as much in love with Marian Lindsay as it was
possible to be through the medium of a picture. I thought of the girl
I had seen in the pine wood and felt an inward shrinking from a step
that might divide me from her forever. But I rated myself for this
nonsense. It was in the highest degree unlikely that I should ever
meet the girl of the pines again. If she were still living she was
probably some other man's wife. I would think no more about it.

Peter whistled when he heard what I had to say.

"Of course I'll do it, old man," he said obligingly. "But I warn you I
don't think it will be much use. Marian isn't the sort of girl to open
up a