t is a disease of
youth. But don't let it mark your affairs. It is all right to foregather
with these workingmen, and find out about their trades-unions and that
sort of thing--such knowledge will be useful to you in your business.
But when it comes to women"--MacPherson paused and shook his gray
head--"to young, pretty women--a man must stick to his own class."

"You mean the girl in the corridor," said Stoddard with that directness
which his friends were apt to find disconcerting. "I haven't classified
her yet. She's rather an extraordinary specimen."

"Well, she's not in your class, and best leave her alone," returned
MacPherson doggedly. "It wouldn't matter if the young thing were not so
beautiful, and with such a winning look in her eyes. This America beats
me. That poor lass would make a model princess--according to common
ideals of royalty--and here you find her coming out of some hut in the
mountains and going to work in a factory. Miss Lydia Sessions is a
well-bred young woman, now; she's been all over Europe, and profited by
her advantages of travel. I call her an exceedingly well-bred person."

"She is," agreed Stoddard without enthusiasm.

"And I'm sure you must admire her altruistic ideas--they'd just fall in
with yours, I suppose, now."

Stoddard shook his head.

"Not at all," he said briefly. "If you were enough interested in
socialism to know what we folks are driving at, I could explain to you
why we object to charitable enterprises--but it's not worth while."

"Indeed it is not," assented MacPherson hastily. "Though no doubt we
might have a fine argument over it some evening when we have nothing
better to talk about. I thought you and Miss Sessions were fixing up a
match of it, and it struck me as a very good thing, too. The holdings of
both of you are in cotton-mill property, I judge. That always makes for
harmony and stability in a matrimonial alliance."

Stoddard smiled. He was aware that Miss Lydia's holdings consisted of a
complaisant brother-in-law in whose house she was welcome till she could
marry. But he said nothing on this head.

"MacPherson," he began very seriously, "I wonder a little at you, I know
you old-world people regard these things differently; but could you look
at Mrs. Hardwick's children, and seriously recommend Mrs. Hardwick's
sister as a wife for a friend?"

Old MacPherson stopped in the way, thrust his hands deep in his pockets
and stared at the younger man.

"We