repeated, as though to
himself. "I'll do whatever you say. I'll take you to the seventh floor
or I'll drop you to the street. It's up to you, gentlemen," he added,
helplessly, and turning his back to them threw his arm against the wall
of the elevator and buried his face upon it.

There was an embarrassing pause, during which Van Bibber scowled at
himself in the mirror opposite as though to ask it what a man who looked
like that should do under such trying circumstances.

He turned at last and stared at Travers. "'Where ignorance is bliss,
it's folly to be wise,'" he whispered, keeping his face toward his
friend. "What do you say? Personally I don't see myself in the part of
Providence. It's the case of the poor man and his one ewe lamb, isn't
it?"

"We don't want his ewe lamb, do we?" growled Travers. "It's a case of
the dog in a manger, I say. I thought we were going to be fairy
godfathers to 'La Cinderella.'"

"The lady seems to be supplied with a most determined godfather as it
is," returned Van Bibber.

The elevator boy raised his face and stared at them with haggard eyes.

"Well?" he begged.

Van Bibber smiled upon him reassuringly, with a look partly of respect
and partly of pity.

"You can drop us to the street," he said.

MISS DELAMAR'S UNDERSTUDY

A young man runs two chances of marrying the wrong woman. He marries her
because she is beautiful, and because he persuades himself that every
other lovable attribute must be associated with such beauty, or because
she is in love with him. If this latter is the case, she gives certain
values to what he thinks and to what he says which no other woman gives,
and so he observes to himself, "This is the woman who best understands
_me_."

You can reverse this and say that young women run the same risks, but as
men are seldom beautiful, the first danger is eliminated. Women still
marry men, however, because they are loved by them, and in time the
woman grows to depend upon this love and to need it, and is not content
without it, and so she consents to marry the man for no other reason
than because he cares for her. For if a dog, even, runs up to you
wagging his tail and acting as though he were glad to see you, you pat
him on the head and say, "What a nice dog." You like him because he
likes you, and not because he belongs to a fine breed of animal and
could take blue ribbons at bench shows.

This is the story of a young man who was in love with a