ledge, talked for five minutes together with Maud before, and here
he was spending half the evening in an engrossing tete-a-tete with her,
to the neglect of his other acquaintances and of herself in particular.
Maud was looking very well, to be sure, but no better than often before,
when he had not glanced at her a second time. What might be the clue to
this mystery? She remembered, upon reflection, that he had escorted Maud
home from the party at her own house the week before, but that explained
nothing. Ella was aware of no weapon in the armory of her sex capable of
effecting the subjugation of a previously quite indifferent young man
in the course of a ten-minutes' walk. If, indeed, such weapons there
had been, Maud Elliott, the most reserved and diffident girl of her
acquaintance,--"stiff and pokerish," Ella called her,---was the last
person likely to employ them. It must be, Ella was forced to conclude,
that Arthur was trying to punish her for snubbing him by devoting
himself to Maud; and, having adopted this conclusion, the misguided
damsel proceeded to flirt vigorously with a young man whom she detested.

In the latter part of the evening, when Arthur was looking again for
Maud, he learned that she had gone home, a servant having come to fetch
her. The result was that he went home alone, Ella Perry having informed
him rather crushingly that she had accorded the honor of escorting
herself to another. He was rather vexed at Ella's jilting him, though he
admitted that she might have fancied she had some excuse.

A few days later he called on her, expecting to patch up their little
misunderstanding, as on previous occasions. She was rather offish, but
really would have been glad to make up, had he shown the humility and
tractableness he usually manifested after their tiffs; but he was not in
a humble frame of mind, and, after a brief and unsatisfactory call,
took his leave. The poor girl was completely puzzled. What had come over
Arthur? She had snubbed him no more than usual that night, and generally
he took it very meekly. She would have opened her eyes very wide indeed
if she had guessed what there had been in his recent experience to spoil
his appetite for humble-pie.

It was not late when he left Ella, and as he passed Maud's house he
could not resist the temptation of going in. This time he did not
pretend to himself that he sought her from any but entirely selfish
motives. He wanted to remove the unpleasantly