tter, Lodloe told her of the state of affairs
between Calthea Rose and Lanigan Beam, and why the latter did not wish
his reform to be known at present.

Mrs. Cristie dropped upon the ground every sweet-pea blossom she had
gathered.

"I cannot imagine," she said, "how you can take the part of a man who
would deliberately attempt to lower himself in the eyes of one woman in
order that he might have a better chance to win another woman."

"Mrs. Cristie," said Lodloe, "I am a young man, and I have lived much
among young men. I have seen many of them in dangerous and troubled
waters, floating down to ruin and destruction, and now and then I have
seen one who had turned and was trying to strike out for the shore. In
every case of this kind I have tried to give the poor fellow a hand and
help him get his feet on firm ground. Sometimes he jumped in again, and
sometimes he didn't, but all that was not my affair; I was bound to help
him when I saw him facing the right way, and that is just the way I feel
about young Beam. I do not approve of all his methods, but if he wants
moral support I say he ought to have it."

Mrs. Cristie looked at the pink, blue, and purple blossoms on the
ground. "His sentiments are good and generous ones," she thought, "and I
shall not say one word against them, but Ida Mayberry shall not marry
that exceedingly slippery young man, and the good Mr. Tippengray shall
not be caught by Calthea Rose." She came to this resolution with much
firmness of purpose, but as she was not prepared to say anything on the
subject just then, she looked up very sweetly at Lodloe, and said:

"Suppose we drop Mr. Beam."

He looked for an instant into her eyes.

"Gladly," he exclaimed, with an impulse like a lightning-flash, "and
speak of Walter Lodloe."

"Of you?" she said.

"Yes, of me," he replied; "of myself, of a man who has no scheme, no
plan, no concealments, and who only wishes you to know that he loves you
with all his heart."

She looked at him steadfastly for a moment.

"Was it for this," she said, "that you asked me to come with you and
pick sweet-pea blossoms?"

"Not at all," he exclaimed; "I meant no more than I said, and thought of
no more. But the flowers we came to gather you have dropped upon the
ground."

"They can easily be picked up again," she said.

"Not at all," he cried, and, stepping forward, put his foot upon the
fragrant blossoms. Then with a few rapid dashes he gathered a bunch of