manners, his apparent
frankness, and the round of amusements he kept her in, could not but
have their effect on a strong-willed creature such as she was. Her
pent-up intensity of life burst out now into the keenest enjoyment of
all that she saw and heard and felt for the first time.

There were times when the memory of her country home and little
Periwinkle came into her mind like a fresh breeze from the hills. At
such times she recoiled from the round of unhealthful excitement in
which she found herself; she hated the high-wrought plays and burlesque
operas that she had seen; she despised the exciting novels that Harry
Lowder had lent her. Then the old farm, with its stern and quiet ways,
seemed a sort of paradise; she longed for her mother's voice, and even
for her father's rebuke, for Rob Riley's homely love-making, and
Periwinkle's quaint ways. At such times she had a sense of standing in
some imminent peril, a dark foreboding shadowed her, and she wished
that she had never come to New York, for the drawing did not get on
well. Harry Lowder said it didn't matter about the drawing; she was
meant for something better. There was always an easy way out of such
depressions. Harry told her that she had the blues, and that if she
would go to see this or that the blues would disappear. There is an
easy way of getting rid of the blues by pawning to-morrow to pay
to-day's debts.

It would hardly be right to say that Lowder was in love with Henrietta
Newton, for in our good English tongue there is usually a moral element
to the word love. But Harry certainly was fascinated with
Henrietta--more fascinated than he had ever been with any one else. And
as he had become convinced that it was best for him to marry and to
reform--just a little--he thought that Henrietta Newton would be the
girl to marry.

So it happened that Periwinkle, who had waited for Christmas to come
that she might see Henrietta again, was bitterly disappointed. At
Christmas Henrietta had been promised two great treats--Fox in Humpty
Dumpty and the sight of St. Dives's Church in its decorations, with the
best music in the city. And then there were to be other things quite as
wonderful to the country girl. In truth, Henrietta was afraid to go
home. Somewhere in the associations of home there lay in wait for her a
revengeful conscience which she feared to meet. Then, too, Rob Riley
would be at home, and a meeting with him must produce shame in her, and
bring