fireplace in the front room. The door was open
between. It wasn't that she was especially pretty, but in her white
morning-dress, with lace about her throat and her fair hair drawn back
from her face, I thought she was the delicatest, softest, finest thing
of man- or woman-kind I ever say.

"Look there, Susy! look there!" I whispered.

"It is a Mrs. Lloyd from New York. She is here on a visit. That is her
husband;" and then she went down into her own gloomy thoughts again.

The husband was a grave, middle-aged man. He had had his paper up before
his face, so that I had not seen him before.

"You will go for the tickets, then, Edward?" she said.

"If you make a point of it, yes," in an annoyed tone. "But I don't know
why you make a point of it. The musical part of the performance is
beneath contempt, I understand, and the real attraction is the
exhibition of these mountebanks of trapezists, which will be simply
disgusting to you. You would not encourage such people at home: why
would you do it here?"

"They are not necessarily wicked." I noticed there was a curious
unsteadiness in her voice, as though she was hurt and agitated. I
thought perhaps she knew I was there.

"There is very little hope of any redeeming qualities in men who make a
trade of twisting their bodies like apes," he said. "Contortionists and
ballet-dancers and clowns and harlequins--" he rattled all the names
over with a good deal of uncalled-for sharpness, I thought, calling them
"dissolute and degraded, the very offal of humanity." I could not
understand his heat until he added, "I never could comprehend your
interest and sympathy for that especial class, Ellinor."

"No, you could not, Edward," she said quietly.

"But I have it. I never have seen an exhibition of the kind. But I want
to see this to-night, if you will gratify me. I have no reason." she
added when he looked at her curiously. "The desire is unaccountable to
myself."

The straightforward look of her blue eyes as she met his seemed
strangely familiar and friendly to me.

At that moment Susy stood up to go. Her cheeks were burning and her eyes
sparkling. "Dissolute and degraded!" she said again and again when we
were outside. But I took no notice.

As we reached the house she stopped me when I turned off to go to
rehearsal. "You'll get seats for grandmother and me, Mr. Balacchi?" she
said.

"You're going, then, Susy?"

"Yes, I'm going."

* * * *