nd unperverted woman is flattered by receiving
only the general obsequiousness which most men give to the whole sex.
In the man who contradicts and strives with her, she discovers a truer
interest, a nobler respect. The empty-headed, spindle-shanked youths
who dance admirably, understand something of billiards, much less of
horses, and still less of navigation, soon grow inexpressibly wearisome
to us; but the men who adopt their social courtesy, never seeking to
arouse, uplift, instruct us, are a bitter disappointment.

"What would have been the end, had you really found me? Certainly a
sincere, satisfying friendship. No mysterious magnetic force has drawn
you to me or held you near me, nor has my experiment inspired me with
an interest which can not be given up without a personal pang. I am
grieved, for the sake of all men and all women. Yet, understand me! I
mean no slightest reproach. I esteem and honor you for what you are.
Farewell!"

There! Nothing could be kinder in tone, nothing more humiliating in
substance. I was sore and offended for a few days; but I soon began to
see, and ever more and more clearly, that she was wholly right. I was
sure, also, that any further attempt to correspond with her would be
vain. It all comes of taking society just as we find it, and supposing
that conventional courtesy is the only safe ground on which men and
women can meet.

The fact is--there's no use in hiding it from myself (and I see, by
your face, that the letter cuts deep into you own conscience)--she is a
free, courageous, independent character, and--I am not.

But who _was_ she?

MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI
----------------------------
BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

_Thomas Bailey Aldrich (born at Portsmouth, N. H., Nov. n, 1836) is an
artist to his finger tips, whether working in verse or prose. His short
story of a non-existent heroine, "Marjorie Daw" has been repeatedly
mentioned by the critics as a masterpiece of dainty workmanship.
Consequently most readers are familiar with it. It gave title to a
volume of short stories, one of which, the present selection, hardly
deserved to be thrust in this manner into the background. Its
denouement is fully as ingenious and unexpected as that of "Marjorie
Daw," and it is led up to with an art that is just as illusory. The
reader, too, is relieved at the final shattering of the romance, where,
in the same case with "Marjorie Daw," he can hardly bring himself to
forgi