s who had witnessed the exchange, she broke
into a piteous sob.

"Why, of course to the ball-room, my darling," breathed a voice, which
low though it was, thrilled her more than the voice of an archangel,
and she felt herself strained to a man's heart and her bare shoulders,
which peeped from the cloak at the thrust of a pair of strong arms
beneath it, came in contact with the cool, smooth surface of the bosom
of a dress shirt. "Don't you remember that I engaged the second
two-step at the Charity Ball?"

Clarissa, almost swooning with joy as she reclined palpitating upon
the manly breast of Captain William Leadbury, said never a word, for
the power of speech was not in her; the power of song, of uttering
peans of joy, perhaps, but not the power of speech.

"Have I assumed too much," said Leadbury, gravely, relaxing somewhat
the tightness of his embrace. "Have I, arguing from the fact that you
both served me in the crisis of my career and saved my life, assumed
too much in believing you love me? If so, I beg your pardon for
arranging this surprise. I will release you. I----"

"Oh, no," crooned Clarissa, nestling against him with all the
quivering protest of a child about to be taken from its mother. "You
read my actions rightly. Oh, how I have suffered this week. No word
from you. I could not understand it. Of course you could not know I
was a girl. But I thought you ought to be grateful, even to a boy."

"But I did know you were a girl. When you fell, I began to open the
clothes about your chest. When I discovered your sex, I carried you
upstairs, placed you on a bed, threw a blanket over you and was about
to call Miss Bording to take charge of you----"

"I'm glad you didn't. I don't like Miss Bording," said Clarissa.

"I had left to call her, when that poltroon of an Anderson Walkley,
who had stolen back into the house after running from it, crept behind
me and struck me back of the ear with a shaving mug. I dropped
unconscious. In the resulting confusion, your very existence was as
forgotten as your whereabouts was unknown. You lay there as I had left
you until a maid found you in the morning and packed you off. It was
not until Wednesday that I was able to be out. I knew you came from
this store, and mousing about in there, I had no trouble in
identifying the nice young page with the beautiful young woman at the
cutlery counter. I could scarce wait two days, but as three had
already passed, I planned this sur