emblance to his features, and went about sighing sighs and dreaming
dreams, in a fashion at once pathetic and ridiculous. Flint,
meanwhile, always obtuse on the side of sympathy, went his way wholly
oblivious of her state of mind. How should he know that his rolls were
hotter and his coffee stronger than those of his fellow-boarders, or
that to him alone was accorded the friendly advice as to the
comparative merits of "Injun pudd'n" and huckleberry pie, which
constituted the staple of desserts at the inn?

This morning, as usual, he was wholly unconscious of the effort to
beautify the tray set down outside his door. It meant nothing to him,
that the pitcher holding the hot water was of red and yellow majolica,
that the coarse napkin was embroidered with a wreath of impossible
roses, and the coffee-cup bore the legend "Think of me" in gilt
lettering. In fact the only thing which attracted his attention at all
was a pile of letters on the tray. He glanced hastily over the
envelopes, swallowed his breakfast, and returned to closer inspection
of the correspondence. The first letter which he opened was written by
the editor of an English "Quarterly," informing him that his recent
critique on Balzac had found favor in high places, and that the
"Quarterly" would like to engage a series.

Flint tried not to seem, even to himself, as pleased as he felt.

The next note was of a different tone, a grieved rejoinder from a
young author whose book had been reviewed by Flint with more light
than sweetness. Less stoical to reproaches than to compliment, Flint
kicked vigorously at the bedclothes, as though they had been the
offending note-writer.

"Great Heavens!" he growled. "Does the man think his budding genius
must be fed on sugar-plums? What I said about him and his book was
either true or false; and here he spends his whole sheet prating about
'sensitive feelings,' as if they had anything to do with the matter."

Oh, imperfect sympathies! How large a part you play in the unhappiness
of the world!

The third envelope on the tray was yellow, and contained a large,
careless scrawl on a half-sheet of business paper; but it seemed to
afford Flint unalloyed delight.

"Brady coming to-day!" he almost shouted aloud. "That is what I call
jolly. I would like to see forty Dr. Crickets keep me in bed."

Brady and Flint had been college friends in the old days, at Harvard,
and after that for years had drifted apart. Flint betaking him