ut soon to re-meet. Carlisle, having
spent "the morning" shopping,--that is from twelve o'clock to
one-fifteen,--had departed to finish her commissions. Canning had a
regretted engagement with Allison Payne, downtown, to advise Mr. Payne
touching some of his investments. But he was to pick Carlisle up at
Morland's establishment at four o'clock, with the car he had hired by
the week; and the remainder of the afternoon would belong to him alone.
He was to have the evening, too, at the House, following a large
dinner-party of the elders arranged by Mrs. Heth before she knew the
date of his return. And these two occasions, the lover resolved, should
suffice his need....

Cally had her hour in the shops, enjoying herself considerably. Her
purchases this afternoon were partly utilitarian, it was true, concerned
with Mrs. Heth's annual box to her poor Thompson kin in Prince William
County. But she took more than one little flyer on her own account.
Nothing more had Cally said to her father as to giving him back the
fifteen hundred dollars, dividend on her stock. Consequently she
bristled with money nowadays, and had been splurging largely on highly
desirable little "extras." And mamma, usually quite strict in her
accounts, thought of trousseaux, and only smiled at these extravagances.

Cally moved in her destined orbit. From shop to shop, she pleasurably
pursued the material. Nevertheless, she cogitated problems as she
bought; chiefly with reference to Hugo, and the two or three hours'
_tete-a-tete_ that waited just ahead.... At just what point should the
needs of discipline be regarded as satisfied? That was the question, as
she had remarked last night.

At Baird & Himmel's these knotty reflections were interrupted for a
space. In this spreading mart Cally chanced to fall in with an
acquaintance.

Baird & Himmel's was the great popular department store of the town,
just now rapidly flowing over its whole block, and building all around
the usual drug-store which declined to sell. Here rich and poor rubbed
elbows with something like that human equality so lauded by Mr. V.V. and
others. And here Cally had pushed her way to Gentlemen's Furnishings,
her purpose being to buy two shirts for James Thompson, Jr., neck size
13, and not to cost over one dollar each, as mamma had duly noted on the
memorandum.

It was ten minutes to four o'clock, as a glance at her watch now showed.
Cally swung a little on her circular seat, and enc