g man looked aimlessly at the fleecy clouds that hung low on the
horizon.

"No," he answered.

"And you think you are ready for a passionate affection, if the right
person is found?"

"I will try," he said, simply.

Mr. Weil roused himself and touched his horse with the whip.

"Try!" he echoed. "You will not have to try. She will carry you off your
feet, at the first go. Shirley, I have found you a superb woman, that
you _must_ love. All I want to feel sure of is, that you can control
yourself enough to behave in a reasonable manner."

Roseleaf looked up inquiringly.

"She belongs to an eminently respectable family," explained Archie. "Her
father is a gentleman of the most honorable type. She has a young
sister, who--"

Roseleaf, slow at all times, had at last begun to comprehend.

"You surely don't think--" he began.

"Ah, that is the question! A novelist must learn so very much--a
novelist who is to depict the truth, as you are to do. Where should he
stop? What experience should he refuse, provided it may be utilized in
his work? A responsibility that is no light one will rest on me, my dear
boy, when I have introduced you to this family, and left you to your
own devices."

Roseleaf's eyes opened wider at these mysterious suggestions, but he did
not like to make any more inquiries. Weil changed the conversation,
calling attention to the women they met, who turned their handsome heads
to look at the young man, as their equipages almost touched his.

"What an awfully wide swath you are cutting!" was Archie's exclamation,
as the throng increased.

CHAPTER VII.

A DINNER AT MIDLANDS.

True to his appointment Walker Boggs met Mr. Weil on the following
afternoon, and set out with him for Wilton Fern's office. Though
engaged, as has been already stated, in the wool trade, Mr. Fern did not
have on the premises to which these worthies repaired a very large
assortment of that product. His warehouses were in another part of the
city, and all the wool that was visible to his customers was arranged in
sample lots that would easily have gone into a barrel. Mr. Weil,
notwithstanding the description that Boggs had given of his ex-partner,
was not prepared to see such an exceedingly fine specimen of humanity as
the one introduced to him. The word "gentleman" was written in large
characters on his broad forehead and in every word he spoke. It
certainly was not often, said Archie to himself, that one encounte