an half-cut
quality, and that's all she'd be. And are you sure, Charley, that rich
people are happier than we are? We don't worry about what we haven't
got."

The children were now upon the stairs, and the private talk was ended.
They greeted their cousin eagerly, and began as usual to talk of Miss
Callender.

"We tried to bring her home with us," said Dick, "but she said, 'Not
to-day, Dick, not to-day,' and she stuck to it. I told her you'd be
here, and I thought that would fetch her, but she only laughed and said
she had to call and see a poor sick young lady that hadn't walked for
five years; and then she said, 'Give my love to your mother,' and left
us. I sh'd thought she'd 'a' sent her love to Cousin Charley, too, but
she never done it."

"Don't say 'never done it,' Dick," broke in Mary. "It's not proper."

Millard accepted his aunt's invitation to tea, and then walked homeward
by a very round-about way. He was not quite aware of the nature of the
impulse that caused him to turn downtown and thus to trace a part of
the route he had walked over with Phillida four weeks before. He paused
to look again at the now dark stairway up which lived the bedridden
Wilhelmina Schulenberg, and though he shuddered with a sort of repulsion
at thought of her hard lot, it was not sympathy with Mina Schulenberg
that had arrested his steps at the mouth of this human hive. To his
imagination it seemed that these dark, uninviting stairs were yet warm
with the tread of the feet of Phillida Callender; it could not be more
than two hours since she came down. So instead of following the route of
a month ago through Tompkins Square and Eighth street, as he had half
unconsciously set out to do, he walked through Tenth street to Second
Avenue. This way Phillida must have gone this very afternoon, and this
way he felt himself drawn by an impulse increasing in force ever as he
journeyed. It seemed of prime importance that he should call on Miss
Callender without delay, just to consult her about Mary's education. His
reasoning in favor of this course was convincing, for logic never gets
on so well as when inclination picks all the pebbles out of the pathway.

A long discussion concerning Mary Martin's education was held that
evening between the young people sitting by the drop-lamp in Mrs.
Callender's parlor. Many nice theories were broached by each of them,
but during the whole of the discussion they were both in a state of
double consciou