oung people of opposite sexes
who might have everything to give each other except time. She was
perhaps ten years older than he, extremely handsome, with dimples and
dark red hair and blue eyes. She had a large practice among the poor,
and might have made a conspicuous success of her profession if it had
not been for her intense and too widely diffused interest. She wanted to
strike a blow at every abuse that came to her attention, and as, in the
course of her work, a great many turned up, she was always striking
blows and never following them up. She went through life in a series of
springs, each one in a different direction; but the motion of her
attack was as splendid as that of a tiger. Often she was successful, and
always she enjoyed herself.

When she answered Pete's ring, and he looked up at her magnificent
height, her dimples appeared in welcome. She really was glad to see him.

"Come out and dine with me, Lily, and go to the theater."

"Come to a meeting at Cooper Union on capital punishment. I'm going to
speak, and I'm going to be very good."

"No, Lily; I want to explain to you what a pitiable sex you belong to.
You have no character, no will--"

She shook her head, laughing.

"You are a personal lot, you young men," she said. "You change your mind
about women every day, according to how one of them treats you."

"They don't amount to a row of pins, Lily."

"Certainly some men select that kind, Pete."

"O Lily," he answered, "don't talk to me like that! I want some one to
tell me I'm perfect, and, strangely enough, no one will."

"I will," she answered, with beaming good nature, "and I pretty near
think so, too. But I can't dine with you, Pete. Wouldn't you like to go
to my meeting?"

"I should perfectly hate to," he answered, and went off crossly, to
dine at his college's local club. Here he found an old friend, who most
fortunately said something derogatory of the firm of Benson & Honaton.
The opinion coincided with certain phases of Wayne's own views, but he
contradicted it, held it up to ridicule, and ended by quoting incidents
in the history of his friend's own firm which, as he said, were
probably among the crookedest things that had ever been put over in
Wall Street. Lily would not have distracted his mind more completely.
He felt almost cheerful when he went home about ten o'clock. His mother
was still out, and there was no letter from Mathilde. He had been
counting on finding one.

Bef