customer, and not only given him value for his
money, but converted him, so far as outward appearance goes, into a new
man. Philosophers and cynics have from time to time had their fling at
the tyranny of clothes, but it still remains an undisputed fact that a
well-dressed man is always much more comfortable and self-respecting
than an ill-dressed one. When Walter Hepburn beheld the new man the
tailor had turned out, a strange change came over him, and he saw in
himself possibilities hitherto undreamed of. He realised for the first
time that he looked fitter than most men to win a woman's approval, and
I am quite safe in saying that Gladys owed this totally unlooked-for
visit entirely to the St. Vincent Street tailor.

'So very glad to see you,' she repeated, and she thought it no treachery
to her absent lover to keep hold of the hand she had taken in greeting.
'And looking so nice and so handsome! Oh, Walter, now I am no longer
unhappy about you, for I see you have awakened at last to a sense of
what you ought to be.'

It was a tribute to clothes, but it sank with unalloyed sweetness into
the young man's heart.

'You are very kind to me, Gladys, and I do not deserve any such welcome.
I was afraid, indeed, that you might refuse to see me, as you would be
perfectly justified in doing.'

'Oh, Walter,' she said reproachfully, 'how dare you say such a thing?
Refuse to see you, indeed! Do sit down and tell me everything. Do you
know, it is just my dinner hour, and you shall dine with me; and how
delightful that will be. I thought of sending down to say I didn't wish
any dinner, it is so lonely eating alone.'

'Where is the lady who lives with you? You had a lady, hadn't you?'

'Yes--Miss Peck. She has gone back to Lincoln to see her aunt who is
dying, and I am quite alone, though to-morrow I expect one of Mr.
Fordyce's daughters. And now, tell me, have you heard anything of Liz?'

The voice sank to a grave whisper, and her eyes grew luminous with
anxiety and sympathetic concern.

'Nothing,' Walter answered, with a shake of his head, 'and I have been
inquiring all round, too. My father and mother have never seen or heard
anything of her. I think you must have made a mistake that night in
Berkeley Street.'

'If it was not Liz, it was her ghost,' said Gladys quite gravely. 'I
cannot understand it. But, come, let us go down-stairs. You ought to
offer me your arm, Walter. I cannot help laughing when I think of Mrs.
Fo