id that she supposed
Mr. Eliot had a great deal of spare time on his hands, but of course he
had no business to employ it in writing tiresome novels.

George, who knew everybody, had a kindly greeting for all who were
within its reach, even for the tired-looking little school-teacher, who
had come out with her landlady's fifteen-year-old son as an escort and
in a little while had settled down to quiet enjoyment of the squatter
governor's message, approving with a quiet smile the grin that
occasionally spread over Perry's good-humored face. As for me, I was
made miserable from the start by seeing Lucretia Knowles in one of the
best seats on the floor, with a conceited fool of a
newspaper-correspondent at her side, whispering nonsense in her ear at
such a rate that she did nothing but laugh and turn her pretty head back
to speak with Mamie Jennings, her _fidus Achates_, and never once cast
her eyes toward the gallery. She has said since that she knew I was
there all the time, and that she didn't dare look at me, because I was
such a frightful picture of jealousy, with my fingers in my hair and my
elbow on the gallery railing, staring down on the floor as if I should
like to drop a bomb and annihilate the entire lot. It is all very well
to look back now and laugh and feel sorry for the curly-locked
journalist, who is writing letters from Mexico and trying to get over
the disappointment which the knowledge of our engagement gave him, but
it was very little fun for me at the time.

I turned away a dozen times, and swore inwardly that I wouldn't look
that way again, and after each resolve I would find my eyes glancing
from one person to another in Lu's vicinity, until finally they would
rest again on her. When I had declared for the thirteenth time that I
wouldn't contemplate her heartless flirting, I noticed George bow to
some one who had just come in at the gallery door. A young man from one
of the western counties was making a satirical speech in favor of the
woman's suffrage amendment, misquoting Tennyson's "Princess" and making
the gallery shake with laughter, at the time; but I noticed George's
face light up and his eyes sparkle with pleasure at the sight of the
new-comer. She was a beautiful lady, over thirty, I should say, with the
sweetest face, for a sad one, I had ever seen. Of course, in a certain
way I like Lucretia's style of beauty better; but Mrs. Herbert was
beautiful in a way, so far as the women I have eve