, you're a very pretty girl," said one old rake of
fifty-odd when she knocked at his door one morning to give him a
message from his hostess.

"I beg your pardon," she said, confusedly, and colored.

"Indeed, you're quite sweet. And you needn't beg my pardon. I'd
like to talk to you some time."

He attempted to chuck her under the chin, but Jennie hurried away.
She would have reported the matter to her mistress but a nervous shame
deterred her. "Why would men always be doing this?" she thought. Could
it be because there was something innately bad about her, an inward
corruption that attracted its like?

It is a curious characteristic of the non-defensive disposition
that it is like a honey-jar to flies. Nothing is brought to it and
much is taken away. Around a soft, yielding, unselfish disposition men
swarm naturally. They sense this generosity, this non-protective
attitude from afar. A girl like Jennie is like a comfortable fire to
the average masculine mind; they gravitate to it, seek its sympathy,
yearn to possess it. Hence she was annoyed by many unwelcome
attentions.

One day there arrived from Cincinnati a certain Lester Kane, the
son of a wholesale carriage builder of great trade distinction in that
city and elsewhere throughout the country, who was wont to visit this
house frequently in a social way. He was a friend of Mrs. Bracebridge
more than of her husband, for the former had been raised in Cincinnati
and as a girl had visited at his father's house. She knew his mother,
his brother and sisters and to all intents and purposes socially had
always been considered one of the family.

"Lester's coming to-morrow, Henry," Jennie heard Mrs. Bracebridge
tell her husband. "I had a wire from him this noon. He's such a scamp.
I'm going to give him the big east front room up-stairs. Be sociable
and pay him some attention. His father was so good to me."

"I know it," said her husband calmly. "I like Lester. He's the
biggest one in that family. But he's too indifferent. He doesn't care
enough."

"I know; but he's so nice. I do think he's one of the nicest men I
ever knew."

"I'll be decent to him. Don't I always do pretty well by your
people?"

"Yes, pretty well."

"Oh, I don't know about that," he replied, dryly.

When this notable person arrived Jennie was prepared to see some
one of more than ordinary importance, and she was not disappointed.
There came into the reception-hall to greet her mistress a ma