twice, and I still in my travelling clothes and you in your
dressing-gown."

Howard shook his head. "Don't you see, I am sick with an infernal cold,"
he said. "Got it tramping in the rain without my overcoat, and that
fight I told you of has unstrung me. It was a regular battle. But you go
yourself, and perhaps Eloise will come to see me. I shall show her the
Colonel's confession, and she can do as she pleases about telling her
mother."

Jack left him and went to the dinner, which had been kept waiting some
time, and at which Amy did not appear. She had gone at once to bed,
Eloise explained, when she took her seat at the table with Jack. When
told of Howard's message, she said, "Of course I'll go to him," and half
an hour later she was in his room, and greatly shocked at his white,
haggard face, which indicated more than the cold of which he complained.
He did not tell her of his temptation. It was not necessary. He
congratulated her upon her success, and upon her engagement, of which
Jack had told him. Then he gave her the paper he had found, and watched
her as she read it, sometimes with flashes of indignation upon her face,
and again with tears of pity in her eyes.

"He was a bad man," she said, with great energy, and then added, "A good
one, too, in some respects, although I cannot understand the pride which
made him such a coward."

"I can," Howard rejoined. "It's the Crompton pride, stronger than life
itself. I know, for I am a Crompton. You, probably, are more Harris than
Crompton, and do not feel so deeply."

He did not mean to reflect upon her mother's family, but Eloise's face
was very red as she said, "The Harrises and Browns are not people to be
proud of, I know, but they were as honest, perhaps, as the Cromptons,
and they are mine, and if they all came here to-night I would not disown
them."

She looked every inch a Crompton as she spoke, and Howard laughed and
said, "Good for you, little cousin; I believe you would, and if Jack
finds the conductor in Boston, I dare say you will have him at your
wedding. When is it to be?"

"Just as soon as arrangements can be made," Jack replied, coming in in
time to hear the last of Howard's remark, "and, of course, we'll have
the street conductor if he will come. I start to-morrow to find him."

He took an early train the next morning for Boston, and two days after
he wrote to Eloise: "I believe there are a million street cars in the
city and fifty conductors