ous. To-night I like you better."

"Oh, I am not guinde," said Rowland, gravely.

"I beg your pardon, then, for thinking so. Now I have an idea that you
would make a useful friend--an intimate friend--a friend to whom one
could tell everything. For such a friend, what would n't I give!"

Rowland looked at her in some perplexity. Was this touching sincerity,
or unfathomable coquetry? Her beautiful eyes looked divinely candid; but
then, if candor was beautiful, beauty was apt to be subtle. "I hesitate
to recommend myself out and out for the office," he said, "but I believe
that if you were to depend upon me for anything that a friend may do, I
should not be found wanting."

"Very good. One of the first things one asks of a friend is to judge
one not by isolated acts, but by one's whole conduct. I care for your
opinion--I don't know why."

"Nor do I, I confess," said Rowland with a laugh.

"What do you think of this affair?" she continued, without heeding his
laugh.

"Of your ball? Why, it 's a very grand affair."

"It 's horrible--that 's what it is! It 's a mere rabble! There are
people here whom I never saw before, people who were never asked. Mamma
went about inviting every one, asking other people to invite any one
they knew, doing anything to have a crowd. I hope she is satisfied! It
is not my doing. I feel weary, I feel angry, I feel like crying. I have
twenty minds to escape into my room and lock the door and let mamma go
through with it as she can. By the way," she added in a moment, without
a visible reason for the transition, "can you tell me something to
read?"

Rowland stared, at the disconnectedness of the question.

"Can you recommend me some books?" she repeated. "I know you are a great
reader. I have no one else to ask. We can buy no books. We can make
debts for jewelry and bonnets and five-button gloves, but we can't spend
a sou for ideas. And yet, though you may not believe it, I like ideas
quite as well."

"I shall be most happy to lend you some books," Rowland said. "I will
pick some out to-morrow and send them to you."

"No novels, please! I am tired of novels. I can imagine better stories
for myself than any I read. Some good poetry, if there is such a thing
nowadays, and some memoirs and histories and books of facts."

"You shall be served. Your taste agrees with my own."

She was silent a moment, looking at him. Then suddenly--"Tell me
something about Mr. Hudson," she demanded. "Yo