or a speculating moment; then, averting
her glance, said, pensively: "Perhaps so; but I don't think it's so
stylish to be a goddess as it is to be very slim. And then, you
know----" Here she suddenly broke off, her eyes fixed upon the crowd of
ladies that blocked an opposite doorway in exeunt. "There's mommer. I
guess she must be going home, and I suppose I'd better go too, and not
keep her waiting."

She rose as she spoke, and with a pat of her hand adjusted her
glimmering skirts.

"Oh, Mr. Faraday," she said, as she peered down at them, "I hope you'll
give yourself the pleasure of calling on me. I'm at home almost any
afternoon after five, and Tuesday is my day. Come whenever you please.
I'll be real glad to see you, and I guess popper'd like to talk to you
about things in the East. He's been in Massachusetts too."

She held out her large white hand and gave Faraday a vigorous
hand-shake.

"I'm glad I came here tonight," she said, smiling. "I wasn't quite
decided, but I thought I'd better, as I had some things to tell Mrs.
Peck for next Sunday's _Trumpet_. If I hadn't come, I wouldn't have met
you. You needn't escort me to Madame Delmonti. I'd rather go by myself.
I'm not a bit a ceremonious person. Good-by. Be sure and come and see
me."

She rustled away, exchanged farewells with Madame Delmonti, and, by a
movement of her head in his direction, appeared to be speaking of
Faraday; then joining a fur-muffled female figure near the doorway,
swept like a princess out of the room.

For a week after Faraday's meeting with Miss. Genevieve Ryan, he had no
time to think of giving himself the pleasure of calling upon that fair
and flattering young lady. The position which he had come out from
Boston to fill was not an unusually exacting one, but Faraday, who was
troubled with a New England conscience, and a certain slowness in
adapting himself to new conditions of life, was too engrossed in
mastering the duties of his clerkship to think of loitering about the
chariot wheels of beauty.

By the second week, however, he had shaken down into the new rut, and a
favorable opportunity presenting itself in a sunny Sunday afternoon, he
donned his black coat and high hat and repaired to the mansion of Barney
Ryan, on California Street.

When Faraday approached the house, he felt quite timid, so imposingly
did this great structure loom up from the simpler dwellings which
surrounded it. Barney Ryan had built himself a palace, a