utside: "You seem balled up about something."

Mavering sighed heavily. "Balled up? It's no word for it. Boardman,
I'm done for. Yesterday I was the happiest fellow in the world, and
now--Yes, it's all over with me, and it's my own fault, as usual. Look;
at that!" He jerked Boardman a note which he had been holding fast
in his band, and got up and went to look himself at the wide range of
chimney-pots and slated roofs which Boardman's dormer-window commanded.

"Want me to read it?" Boardman asked; and Mavering nodded without
glancing round. It dispersed through the air of Boardman's room, as he
unfolded it, a thin, elect perfume, like a feminine presence, refined
and strict; and Boardman involuntarily passed his hand over his rumpled
hair, as if to make himself a little more personable before reading the
letter.

"DEAR MR. MAVERING,--I enclose the ring you gave me the other day, and
I release you from the promise you gave with it. I am convinced that you
wronged yourself in offering either without your whole heart, and I care
too much for your happiness to let you persist in your sacrifice.

"In begging that you will not uselessly attempt to see me, but that you
will consider this note final, I know you will do me the justice not
to attribute an ungenerous motive to me. I shall rejoice to hear of any
good that may befall you; and I shall try not to envy any one through
whom it comes.--Yours sincerely,"

"ALICE PASMER.

"P.S.--I say nothing of circumstances or of persons; I feel that any
comment of mine upon them would be idle."

Mavering looked up at the sound Boardman made in refolding the letter.
Boardman grinned, with sparkling eyes. "Pretty neat," he said.

"Pretty infernally neat," roared Mavering.

"Do you suppose she means business?"

"Of course she means business. Why shouldn't she?"

"I don't know. Why should she?"

"Well, I'll tell you, Boardman. I suppose I shall have to tell you if
I'm going to get any good out of you; but it's a dose." He came away
from the window, and swept Boardman's clothes off the chair preparatory
to taking it.

Boardman lifted his head nervously from the pillow.

"Oh; I'll put them on the bed, if you're so punctilious!" cried
Mavering.

"I don't mind the clothes," said Boardman. "I thought I heard my watch
knock on the floor in my vest pocket. Just take it out, will you, and
see if you've stopped it?"

"Oh, confound your old Waterbury! All the world's stopped; wh