there were a few other
wise men in that company besides ourselves. Who would have known from
your appearance as you sat there gorging with the rest, that you were
inwardly protesting, and greatly preferred the simple life? Don't
flatter yourself that you had the aspect of an ascetic. There were
moments during that meal when any unprejudiced observer who didn't know
you would have sworn that you were deeply gratified that no other
engagement had prevented you from dining in your favourite haunt."

"Don't throw stones," retorted the Skeptic. "I saw you when you caught
sight of some particularly prosperous looking people at another table
and bowed convivially to them as one who says, 'You here, too? Of
course. Our set, you know!'"

"Quits!" admitted the Philosopher. "Well then--it's the ladies who did
succeed in looking like visitants from another world."

This was rather poetical for the Philosopher, and of course it led us to
wonder wherein he thought we differed. Hepatica asked anxiously if she
really had looked so very old-fashioned in the white evening frock which
had been three times made over.

"Hopelessly old-fashioned," assented the Philosopher. "Hopelessly
old-fashioned. But not so much in the matter of the frock as in some
other things. Heaven forbid that it should be otherwise!"

"Amen!" responded the Skeptic fervently.

V

RHODORA AND THE PREACHER

When the fight begins within himself
A man's worth something.
--_Robert Browning._

The Skeptic brought up the letter with him as he came home to dinner; it
had arrived in the last mail. The Philosopher happened to be dining with
us that night, so we four were together when the news came upon us. As
Hepatica read it aloud we stared at one another, astonished.

The letter was from Grandmother, inviting us to Rhodora's wedding, which
was to take place under her roof. Rhodora herself had been practically
under Grandmother's roof for four years now, except as she had been sent
to a school of Grandmother's selection. Rhodora had no mother. Her
father, an absorbed man of business, had, at Grandmother's suggestion,
been glad to let her have the girl to bring up--or to finish bringing
up--according to her own ideas. When we had first seen Rhodora there
could be no question that she sadly needed bringing up by somebody. To
that date she had, apparently, only come up by herself.

"I, for one, have never seen her since that none-too-short vi