g that apparently distinguished them from
those who lacked their advantages, who looked up reverently to them
and read enviously of their doings in the papers, was their assurance,
a quality ostensibly inimitable; yet she imitated it with seemingly
flawless art. A contradiction that defied her wits to reconcile.

She wasted time in the endeavour; her own personality was
prepossessing; she had sufficient tact never to seek to ingratiate
herself; her solecisms were few and insignificant, and the
introduction of Abigail Gosnold was an unimpeachable credential.

As for her antecedents, the lie which credited her to the city of
Massillon passed unchallenged, while a conspiracy of silence kept
private to the few acquainted with it that hideous secret of her
department-store servitude. Mrs. Gosnold would have said nothing out
of sheer kindness of heart even if it had not been her settled habit
to practise the difficult arts of minding her own business and keeping
her own counsel. Savage was still in New York, but had he been at
Gosnold House would have imitated the example set by his amiable
sister and held his tongue even when most exasperated with Sally. Mr.
Trego, of course, knew no more than what he had been free to surmise
from the girl's impulsive confession that she had been out of both
work and money when befriended by Mrs. Standish; but, whatever his
inferences, he kept them to himself.

A simple, sincere, stubborn soul, this Mr. Trego; so, at least, he
made himself appear to Sally, persistently seeking her and dumbly
offering a friendship which she, in the preoccupation of her grand
passion, had neither time nor wish to cultivate, and which he himself
ingenuously apologised for on the plea of self-defence. He frankly
professed a mortal dread of "these women," one of whom, he averred
mysteriously, was bent on marrying him by main strength and
good-will first time she caught him with lowered guard.

His misgivings were measurably corroborated by the attitude toward
Sally adopted by Mrs. Standish in her capacity as close friend, foil,
and confidant of Mrs. Artemas. In the course of those three days the
girl had not been insensible to intimations of a strong, if as yet
restrained, animus in the mind of the older woman. In alarm and regret
she did her futile best to discourage this gentleman without being
overtly discourteous. She could hardly do more; impossible to explain
to her benefactress that he was not the man