ad something to say, but it was, for an interval,
driven from my lips.

"Promise me," I said instead, "never to wear a common-sense shoe."

She stared at me with brows a trifle raised.

"Of course it will displease Mrs. Eubanks, but there is still a better
reason for it."

The brows went farther up at this until they were hardly to be detected
under the broad rim of her garden hat.

Her answer was icy, even for an "Indeed?"--quite in her best Lansdale
manner.

"Yes, 'indeed!'" I retorted somewhat rudely, "but never mind--it's not
of the least consequence. What I meant to say was this--about those
pictures of people, you remember."

"I remember perfectly, and I've concluded that it's all nonsense--all of
it, you understand."

"That's queer--so have I." Had I been a third person and an observer, I
would doubtless have sworn that Miss Lansdale was more surprised than
pleased by this remark of mine.

"I haven't had your picture at all," I went on; "it was a picture of
some one else, and I hadn't thought to look at it for a long time--had
forgotten it utterly, in fact. That's how I came to think I knew your
face before I knew you."

"I told you it was nonsense!" and she snipped off a rose with a kind of
miniature brusqueness.

"But you shall see that I had some reason. If you find time to-day, step
into my library and look at the picture. It's on the mantel, and the
door is open. It may be some one you know, though I doubt even that."

With this I brazenly snatched a pink rose from those within her arm.

"You see Fatty Budlow is coming on," I remarked of this bit of boldness.

"Let him come--he shan't find _me_ in the way." This with an effort to
seem significant.

"Oh, not at _all_!" I assured her politely, and with equal subtlety, I
believe.

Had I known that this was the last time I should ever look upon Miss
Katharine Lansdale, I might have looked longer. She was well worth
seeing for sundry other reasons than her need for common-sense shoes.
But those last times pass so often without our suspecting them! And it
was, indeed, my good fortune never to see her again. For never again was
she to rise, even at her highest, above Miss Kate.

She was even so low as Little Miss when I found her on my porch that
afternoon--a troubled Little Miss, so drooping, so queerly drawn about
the eyes, so weak of mouth, so altogether stricken that I was shot
through at sight of her.

"I waited here--to speak alone--yo