y
after that. I want only just to ask you----"

"Why did you come then? Isn't it rather unusual to go uninvited to a
ball?"

"Why, I reckon you nearly know why I come, Miss Hoffman; but if you want
me to say precisely, ma'am----"

"I don't!"

"We'll keep that for a surprise, then. Another thing: I wanted to find
out just where you live in New York. I forgot to ask you. And I couldn't
very well go round asking folks after you're gone--could I? Of course I
didn't have any invitation--from Mr. Lake; but I thought, if he didn't
know it, he wouldn't mind me just stepping in to get your address."

"Well, of all the assurance!" said Miss Ellinor. "Do you intend to
start up a correspondence with me without even the formality of asking
my consent?"

"Why, Miss Ellinor, ma'am, I thought----"

"Miss Hoffman, sir! Yes--and there's another thing. You said you had no
invitation--from Mr. Lake. Does that mean, by any chance, that I invited
you?"

"You didn't say a word about my coming," said Jeff. He was a flustered
man, this poor Bransford, but he managed to put a slight stress upon the
word "say."

Miss Ellinor--Miss Hoffman--caught this faint emphasis instantly.

"Oh, I didn't _say_ anything? I just looked an invitation, I suppose?"
she stormed. "Melting eyes--and that sort of thing? Tears in them,
maybe? Poor girl! Poor little child! It would be cruel to let her go
home without seeing me again. I will give her a little more happiness,
poor thing, and write to her a while. Maybe it would be wiser, though,
just to make a quarrel and break loose at once. She'll get over it in a
little while after she gets back to New York. Well! Upon my word!"

As she advanced these horrible suppositions, Miss Hoffman had marked out
a short beat of garden path--five steps and a turn; five steps back and
whirl again--with, on the whole, a caged-tigress effect. With a
double-quick at each turn to keep his place at her elbow, Jeff, utterly
aghast at the damnable perversity of everything on earth, vainly
endeavored to make coordinate and stumbling remonstrance. As she stopped
for breath, Jeff heard his own voice at last, propounding to the world
at large a stunned query as to whether the abode of lost spirits could
afford aught to excel the present situation. The remark struck him: he
paused to wonder what other things he had been saying.

Miss Ellinor walked her beat, vindictive. Her chin was at an angle of
complacency. She turned up the