rational enough. These be dangerous digressions;
one might better return to the drug-dealing parent of Bess, who visited
the fair sufferers in a Brewster brougham and measured out his calls by
minutes, watch in hand. He heaped up a fortune for Bess and her mother,
and then at one and the same moment quit both his practice and the
world.

When Dorothy came in with Richard, they found Bess entertaining a
caller. The caller was a helpless person named Mr. Fopling.

"Mr. Storms, permit me to make you acquainted with Mr. Fopling,"
observed Bess, after Dorothy had presented Richard.

When Bess named Richard to Mr. Fopling, she did so with a
master-of-ceremony flourish that was protecting and mannish. Richard
grinned in friendship upon Mr. Fopling, who shook hands flabbily and
seemed uncertain of his mental direction. Richard said nothing through
fear of overwhelming Mr. Fopling. Mr. Fopling was equally silent through
fear of overwhelming himself. Released from Richard, Mr. Fopling found
refuge in the chair he had quitted, and maintained himself without sound
or motion, bolt upright, staring straight ahead. Mr. Fopling had a
vacant expression, and his face was not an advantageous face. It was
round, pudgy, weak, with shadows of petulance about the mouth, and the
forehead sloped away at an angle which house-builders, speaking of
roofs, call a quarter-pitch. His chin, acting on the hint offered by the
forehead, was likewise in full retreat. Altogether, one might have said
of Mr. Fopling that if he were not a delightful, at worst he would never
become a dangerous companion. Richard surveyed him with a deal of
curiosity; then he questioned Dorothy with a glance.

"Bess is to marry him," whispered Dorothy.

"What for?" whispered Richard, off his guard. Then, pulling himself
together in confusion: "Of course, he loves her, I dare say. Your friend
Bess is a beautiful girl!"

Richard brought forth the last with hurried unction. It was a cunning
remark to make; it drew Dorothy's attention off Mr. Fopling, whom she
was preparing to defend with spirit, and centered it upon herself. At
Richard's observation, so flattering to Bess, she tossed her head.

"Is she?" said Dorothy, with a falling inflection, vastly severe.

The two were near a window and quite alone, for Bess had stepped into
the hall to give directions to a servant. Mr. Fopling sat the length of
the room away, wrapped in meditation. Richard looked tenderly
apologetic