letter. But
when he had finished it, and had reached the Rink, he out-Stirlinged
Stirling. A speaker nowadays speaks far more to the people absent than
to the people present. Peter did this that evening. He spoke, it is
true, to only one person that night, but it was the best speech of the
campaign.

A week later, Peter rang the bell of the Fifty-seventh Street house. He
was in riding costume, although he had not been riding.

"Mr. and Mrs. D'Alloi are at breakfast," he was informed.

Peter rather hurriedly laid his hat and crop on the hall-table, and went
through the hall, but his hurry suddenly came to an end, when a young
lady, carrying her napkin, added herself to the vista. "I knew it must
be you," she said, offering her hand very properly--(on what grounds
Leonore surmised that a ring at the door-bell at nine o'clock meant
Peter, history does not state)--"I wondered if you knew enough to come
to breakfast. Mamma sent me out to say that you are to come right in."

Peter was rather longer over the handshake than convention demands, but
he asked very politely, "How are your father and--?" But just then the
footman closed a door behind him, and Peter's interest in parents
suddenly ceased.

"How could you be so late?" said some one presently. "I watched out of
the window for nearly an hour."

"My train was late. The time-table on that road is simply a satire!"
said Peter. Yet it is the best managed road in the country, and this
particular train was only seven minutes overdue.

"You have been to ride, though," said Leonore.

"No. I have an engagement to ride with a disagreeable girl after
breakfast, so I dressed for it."

"Suppose the disagreeable girl should break her engagement--or declare
there never was one?"

"She won't," said Peter. "It may not have been put in the contract, but
the common law settles it beyond question."

Leonore laughed a happy laugh. Then she asked: "For whom are those
violets?"

"I had to go to four places before I could get any at this season," said
Peter. "Ugly girls are just troublesome enough to have preferences. What
will you give me for them?"

"Some of them," said Leonore, and obtained the bunch. Who dares to say
after that that women have no business ability nor shrewdness? It is
true that she kissed the fraction returned before putting it in Peter's
button-hole, which raises the question which had the best of the
bargain.

"I'm behind the curtain, so I can't see any