"

However, Mr. Willing of course had his connections downtown, and knowing
his duty in the premises, he would frequently "bring up" men in the
evening, brisk, lively, ambitious young fellows like himself. One of the
men so brought up fell abruptly and deeply in love with Carlisle, which
helped considerably to pass the time away.

"You'd better hold on to Pierce," said Florrie, talking seriously as a
married woman: "He's one of the coming men--dead certain to make a pile
of money some day."

Cally said she'd dearly love to hold on to Pierce, but to herself she
smiled, thinking if Florrie only knew. By this time she had been a
fortnight in New York, and had decided to leave at the end of another
week. Whatever else the visit was or was not, it had more than justified
itself by providing her with just the perspective she needed, to see
things once again in their true proportions. Distance seemed wonderfully
to soften away all the horridnesses. Nothing had really happened. On the
contrary, against this stimulating background it was reassuringly plain
that everything was agreeably settled at last, or very soon to be so
settled. More and more, as April drew steadily nearer, Mr. Canning
towered shiningly in the foreground of her thought.

The days passed quickly enough. She and Florrie spent many absorbing
mornings in the shops, Carlisle for the most part "just looking," under
the coldly disapproving eyes of the shop-ladies. But her intentions were
serious at bottom, in view of three hundred dollars which papa had
privately given her, at the last moment, companied by a defiant wink.
(The wink indicated collusion against mamma, whose design it had been to
cut her daughter off penniless for the trip.) After a great deal of
looking, for she was a thrifty buyer, Cally expended one hundred and
twenty-five dollars for a perfectly lovely two-colored dress,
bewitchingly draped, and seventy-five dollars for a little silk suit.
Both were dirt cheap, Florrie agreed. She looked four times at a dear of
a hat going begging for seventy dollars, but with only three hundred you
have to draw the line somewhere, so Cally simply purchased a plain gray
motor-coat lined with gray corduroy, which she really needed, at sixty
dollars. She also sought a gift for papa, in recognition of his
liberality, and finally selected a silver penknife as just the thing.
The knife, luckily enough, could be got for only $2.50.

The young broker who had fallen