ad never known
before. That she was in friendship with his aunt's family and a sharer
in this off-color part of his existence made a sort of community of
feeling between him and her. He turned the matter over in his mind, he
went over in memory all parts of his encounter with her in his aunt's
tenement, he dwelt upon the glow of surprise on her countenance, and in
imagination he again took her hand in friendly greeting. He recalled
every detail of the walk through Avenue C, in Tompkins Square, and then
through the cross-streets. He made himself feel over again the pleasure
he had felt in those rare moments when she turned her dark, earnest eyes
toward him at some more than usually interesting moment in the
conversation.

This was the pleasant side of the reverie. For the rest, he was
tormented with a certain feeling of unworthiness that had never troubled
him so much before. The more he thought of the purposes, sweet, high,
and disinterested, that moved her, the more was he pained at a sense of
frivolity, or, at least, at a want of "worthwhileness" in his own aims.
He was a communicant at St. Matthias's, and highly esteemed for his
exemplary life and his liberality to the church. But the rector of St.
Matthias's did not trouble himself, as Phillida did, about the lost
sheep in the wilderness of the lettered avenues. His own flock, well
washed and kempt, were much more agreeable subjects of contemplation.

Millard sat in revery a long time. He was really afraid that he should
presently find himself in love with Miss Callender, and such a marriage
was contrary to his whole plan of life. His purpose was primarily to
remain a bachelor, though he had dreamed of himself well established,
but always with a wife whose tastes and connections should incline her
to those pursuits that go with a fashionable career, and he always saw a
vision of himself and his wife entertaining the very elect of New York
City. Here suddenly a new path, hitherto untrodden by his imagination,
opened before him as a possibility. Judged by the standards used among
his friends it was an undesirable road. It involved a voluntary
sacrifice of that position of social prominence and leadership which he
had striven so hard to secure. He resolved to put the thought away from
him.

A little later his lights were out and he was abed. But he did not sleep
at once, for in spite of the best resolutions he could not help
recalling again and again the face and fi