cing her happiness, if that should ever seem her duty,
to his perfection. He says this is not very clear, though it is awfully
gratifying, and he does not quite understand why Mrs. Bittridge's letter
should have liberated Ellen from her fancied obligations to the past.
Ellen can only say that it did so by making her so ashamed ever to have
had anything to do with such people, and making her see how much she had
tried her father and mother by her folly. This again Breckon contends
is not clear, but he says we live in a universe of problems in which
another, more or less, does not much matter. He is always expecting
that some chance shall confront him with Bittridge, and that the man's
presence will explain everything; for, like so many Ohio people who
leave their native State, the Bittridges have come East instead of going
West, in quitting the neighborhood of Tuskingum. He is settled with his
idolized mother in New York, where he is obscurely attached to one of
the newspapers. That he has as yet failed to rise from the ranks in
the great army of assignment men may be because moral quality tells
everywhere, and to be a clever blackguard is not so well as to be simply
clever. If ever Breckon has met his alter ego, as he amuses himself in
calling him, he has not known it, though Bittridge may have been wiser
in the case of a man of Breckon's publicity, not to call it distinction.
There was a time, immediately after the Breckons heard from Tuskingum
that the Bittridges were in New York, when Ellen's husband consulted her
as to what might be his duty towards her late suitor in the event which
has not taken place, and when he suggested, not too seriously, that
Richard's course might be the solution. To his suggestion Ellen
answered: "Oh no, dear! That was wrong," and this remains also Richard's
opinion.

PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A nature which all modesty and deference seemed left out of
All but took the adieus out of Richard's hands
Americans spoil their women! "Well, their women are worth it"
An inscrutable frown goes far in such exigencies
Another problem, more or less, does not much matter
Certain comfort in their mutual discouragement
Conscience to own the fact and the kindness to deny it
Fatuity of a man in such things
Fatuity of age regarding all the things of the past
Fertile in difficulties and so importunate for their solution
Girl is never so much in danger of hav