he styles accidents--in society, only arbitrary methods of
expediency, which, when they outlive their usefulness to an advancing
and exacting civilization, should be set aside. He is a little
impatient to always wait for the inevitable natural adjustment."

"Ah, my dear Mr. Hosmer, the world is certainly to-day not prepared to
stand the lopping off and wrenching away of old traditions. She must
take her stand against such enemies of the conventional. Take religion
away from the life of man--"

"Well, I knew it--I was just as sure as preaching," burst out Mrs.
Worthington, as she threw open the door and confronted the two
men--resplendent in "baby blue" and much steel ornamentation. "As I
tell Mr. Worthington, he ought to turn Christian Brother or something
and be done with it."

"No, no, my dear; Mr. Hosmer and I have merely been interchanging a
few disjointed ideas."

"I'll be bound they were disjointed. I guess Fanny wants you, Mr.
Hosmer. If you listen to Mr. Worthington he'll keep you here till
daylight with his ideas."

Hosmer followed Mrs. Worthington down-stairs and into Mrs. Dawson's.
As he entered the parlor he heard Fanny laughing gaily, and saw that
she stood near the sideboard in the dining-room, just clicking her
glass of punch to Jack Dawson's, who was making a gay speech on the
occasion of her new marriage.

They did not leave when they had intended. Need the misery of that one
day be told?

But on the evening of the following day, Fanny peered with pale,
haggard face from the closed window of the Pullman car as it moved
slowly out of Union depot, to see Lou and Jack Dawson smiling and
waving good-bye, Belle wiping her eyes and Mr. Worthington looking
blankly along the line of windows, unable to see them without his
spectacles, which he had left between the pages of his Schopenhauer on
the kitchen table at home.

PART II

I

Fanny's First Night at Place-du-Bois.

The journey South had not been without attractions for Fanny. She had
that consciousness so pleasing to the feminine mind of being well
dressed; for her husband had been exceedingly liberal in furnishing
her the means to satisfy her fancy in that regard. Moreover the change
holding out a promise of novelty, irritated her to a feeble
expectancy. The air, that came to her in puffs through the car window,
was deliciously soft and mild; steeped with the rich languor of the
Indian summer, that had already touched the tree