orld--"

The protesting expression on the face of her companion arrested her at
this point.

"That depends on what you mean by 'a man of the world?'"

"It is a common expression."

"And has many definitions. Before I plead guilty to it, I want to know
just how much you intend by it."

Miss Fern put down the page she had taken up and a puzzled look crossed
her pretty face.

"You make it hard for me to explain myself," she said. "I suppose I
meant--"

"Now, be as honest as you asked me to be," he interrupted.

"Well, then, I suppose you are a man like--like other men."

"But there are many kinds of other men."

The young lady tried several times to make herself clearer, and then
asked, with a very pathetic pout, that she might be permitted to
proceed with her reading, as the hour was growing later. It was not a
very important point, any way, she said.

"I cannot entirely agree with you," replied Archie. "If you are to be a
writer of fiction, you should not consider any time wasted which informs
you in reference to your fellow creatures. It is from them that you must
draw your inspiration; it is their figures you must put, correctly or
incorrectly, on your canvas. Don't understand me as dictating to you, my
dear Miss Fern. I only wish, as long as you have referred to me, to know
of what I am accused."

To this Miss Fern answered, with many pauses, that she had not intended
to accuse her visitor of anything. And once more--with evident
distress--she begged to be permitted to drop the matter and return to
her reading.

"Very well," he assented, thinking he had annoyed her as much as was
advisable for the present. "As they say in parliamentary bodies, we will
lay the question on the table, from which it can be taken at some more
fitting time. I am as anxious as you can be to get into Chapter II."

She read this chapter to the end, and paused a few seconds to see if he
had any comments to make, but he shook his head without breaking
silence, and she went on with the story. He pursued the same plan till
the end of the fifth chapter.

"It is interesting, exciting and true," he remarked, referring to the
closing scene. "And I cannot help feeling arise in my brain the question
that Mr. Gouger put when he read it: How could a young, innocent girl
like you depict that situation with such absolute fidelity."

He had come to the point with a vengeance. But to Miss Fern his manner
was far more agreeable than if he