eyes, of her aunt's old house
in Washington Square was the chance of a call or two from Mr.
Lispenard. After her third or fourth visit he grew friendly with her,
in fact vastly more friendly than he ever became with her aunt. And
she, for her part, found this elderly aristocrat all the more
fascinating for finding him in New York, through the rushing
progressiveness of which he seemed to move in a kind of stately,
romantic twilight.

"My dear child," were her aunt's first words after Helen's latest
arrival, "you have missed by a single day a call from our next-door
neighbor."

"Well, if he doesn't come again," replied the girl, with a smile, "I'll
scandalize the dear old man nearly to death by going and calling on him
myself."

And this, a few days later, she actually did, to the carefully
concealed elation of Mr. Lispenard's elderly housekeeper, who, after
ushering Miss Maitland into the high-ceiled parlor, betook herself to
the region below stairs, where she definitely expressed herself to the
cook.

"Sure it's a divil the masther is wid the ladies till this very
day--and him only about four minutes inside of eighty!"

"A lady calling, is it?" inquired the cook, with interest.

"Sure--a young wan. It's the ould bhoys have the way wid them, after
all's said and done."

Meanwhile in the old-fashioned reception room with its tinkly crystal
chandelier aquiver, as it were, in sympathetic excitement, the old
gentleman was greeting his young guest.

"Old age!" he said, with a smile of half-mock ruefulness. "Old age!
When ladies come to call on us, we understand, we old beaux, that it is
because we are no longer considered dangerous. Yet the bitterness of
that knowledge, were it twice as bitter as it is, would be more than
offset by my honor and pleasure in receiving you."

Helen beamed on him for reply, and his swift, penetrating eyes observed
her.

"You have grown up to be beautiful, my child," observed old Mr.
Lispenard. "There is nothing about you of this new generation, which I
hate. Indeed, if you would wear crinolines and a curl of that dark
hair on your shoulder, you would be quite perfect."

His young caller blushed a little, but she laughingly retorted:--

"Did you say you had ceased to be dangerous? No one of my generation
could have said that. You will turn my head, sir--and isn't that being
dangerous? For the heads of my generation, the new generation, as you
call it, are not easy to t