liked Albany or not.

"I won't snub you this time," said Leonore to herself, "because you
didn't laugh at me for it."

Peter's evening was not so happy. Leonore told him as they rose from
dinner that she was going to a dance. "We have permission to take you.
Do you care to go?"

"Yes. If you'll give me some dances."

"I've told you once that I'll only give you the ones not taken by better
dancers. If you choose to stay round I'll take you for those."

"Do you ever have a dance over?" asked Peter, marvelling at such a
possibility.

"I've only been to one dance. I didn't have at that."

"Well," said Peter, growling a little, "I'll go."

"Oh," said Leonore, calmly, "don't put yourself out on my account."

"I'm not," growled Peter. "I'm doing it to please myself." Then he
laughed, so Leonore laughed too.

After a game of billiards they all went to the dance. As they entered
the hall, Peter heard his name called in a peculiar voice behind. He
turned and saw Dorothy.

Dorothy merely said, "Peter!" again. But Peter understood that
explanations were in order. He made no attempt to dodge.

"Dorothy," he said softly, giving a glance at Leonore, to see that she
was out of hearing, "when you spent that summer with Miss De Voe, did
Ray come down every week?"

"Yes."

"Would he have come if you had been travelling out west?"

"Oh, Peter," cried Dorothy, below her breath, "I'm so glad it's come at
last!"

We hope our readers can grasp the continuity of Dorothy's mental
processes, for her verbal ones were rather inconsequent.

"She's lovely," continued the verbal process. "And I'm sure I can help
you."

"I need it," groaned Peter. "She doesn't care in the least for me, and I
can't get her to. And she says she isn't going to marry for--"

"Nonsense!" interrupted Dorothy, contemptuously, and sailed into the
ladies' dressing-room.

Peter gazed after her. "I wonder what's nonsense?" he thought.

Dorothy set about her self-imposed task with all the ardor for
matchmaking, possessed by a perfectly happy married woman. But Dorothy
evidently intended that Leonore should not marry Peter, if one can judge
from the tenor of her remarks to Leonore in the dressing-room. Peter
liked Dorothy, and would probably not have believed her capable of
treachery, but it is left to masculine mind to draw any other inference
from the dialogue which took place between the two, as they prinked
before a cheval glass.

"I'm so glad to