d came home from his cold night-prowl in the snowy
streets, he found a sheet of note paper upon his pillow:

"Dearest Richard, I didn't mean that anybody you ever cared for
was a d---l. I only meant that often the world finds out that
there are lovely people it hasn't noticed."

. . . He reproached himself, then, for the reproach his leaving
her had been; he had a susceptible and annoying conscience, this
unfortunate Richard. He found it hard to get to sleep, that night;
and was kept awake long after he had planned how he would make up
to his mother for having received her "legend" so freezingly. What
kept him awake, after that, was a dim, rhythmic sound coming from
the house next door, where a holiday dance was in progress--music
far away and slender: fiddle, 'cello, horn, bassoon, drums, all
rollicking away almost the night-long, seeping through the walls
to his restless pillow. Finally, when belated drowsiness came, the
throbbing tunes mingled with his half-dreams, and he heard the
light shuffling of multitudinous feet over the dancing-floor, and
became certain that Laura's were among them. He saw her, gliding,
swinging, laughing, and happy and the picture did not please him:
it seemed to him that she would have been much better employed
sitting in black to write of a hopeless love. Coquetting with four
suitors was not only inconsistent; it was unbecoming. It "suited
Cora's style," but in Laura it was outrageous. When he woke, in
the morning, he was dreaming of her: dressed as Parthenia,
beautiful, and throwing roses to an acclaiming crowd through which
she was borne on a shield upon the shoulders of four Antinouses.
Richard thought it scandalous.

His indignation with her had not worn off when he descended to
breakfast, but he made up to his mother for having troubled her.
Then, to cap his gallantry, he observed that several inches of
snow must have fallen during the night; it would be well packed
upon the streets by noon; he would get a sleigh, after lunch, and
take her driving. It was a holiday.

She thanked him, but half-declined. "I'm afraid it's too cold for
me, but there are lots of nice girls in town, Richard, who won't
mind weather."

"But I asked _you_!" It was finally left an open question for the
afternoon to settle; and, upon her urging, he went out for a walk.
She stood at the window to watch him, and, when she saw that he
turned northward, she sank into a chair, instead of going to give
Joe