ng and dimpling,
and bubbling over, as it were, with perfect satisfaction with herself
and perfect assurance of what lay before her. The other stood rather
soberly beside her. They were both waiting for a car up Broadway. The
young man who was in love with the pretty one came clattering down
the stairs. There had been something wrong with the elevator, and it
was being repaired. He also had to wait for a car, and he joined the
girls. He approached the pretty girl and timidly pressed his shoulder
against hers in its trim, light jacket. She drew away from him with a
sharp thrust of the elbow.

"Go 'long," said she, forcibly. She laughed, but she was evidently in
earnest.

The young man was not much abashed. He stood regarding her, winking
fast.

"Say," he said, with a cautious glance around at the staircase,
"s'pose the boss is goin' to quit?"

Both girls turned and stared at him. The elder turned quite pale.

"What do you mean, talking so?" said she, sharply.

"Nothin', only I thought it was a kind of queer time of year for a
man to take a vacation, a man as busy as the boss seems to be.
And--it kind of entered my head--"

"If anything entered your head, do, for goodness' sake, hang on to
it," said the pretty girl, pertly. Then her car whirred over the
crossing and ground to a standstill, and she sprang on it with a
laugh at her own wit. "Good-night," she called back.

The other two, waiting for another car, were left together. "You
don't think Mr. Carroll means to give up business?" the girl said, in
a guarded tone.

"Lord, no! Why, he has so much business he can hardly stagger under
it, and he must be making money. I was only joking."

"I suppose he's good pay," the girl said, in a shamed tone.

"Good pay? Of course he is. He don't keep right up to the mark--none
of these lordly rich men like him do--but he's sure as Vanderbilt. I
should smile if he wasn't."

"I thought so," said the girl. "I didn't mean to say I had any doubt."

"He's sure, only he's a big swell. That's always the way with these
big swells. If he hadn't been such a swell, now, he'd have paid us
all off before he took his vacation. But, bless you, money means so
little to a chap like him that it don't enter into his head it can
mean any more to anybody else."

"It must be awful nice to have money enough so you can feel that
way," remarked the girl, with a curious sigh.

"That's so." The young man craned his neck forward to look at a