face, its equal. With the sense of equality
budded a tolerant liking, a Go-to-Old-Ant-Hill frame of mind, with
admixture of charity. He must study the Ant Hill, find out its
interests and its needs, since from the chrysalis of the country
legislator was shortly to evolve the statesman whose constituency was
the state. The thought was broadening--surely he had grown!--and
fertile of large sweeping views of things and men. Why be petty? A
human signboard advertising Bernard Graves's volume for ninety-eight
cents, with the privilege of return, evoked no unkind thought against
his rival; and from this loftier plane he could see even the morning's
rencounter with the reporters in an indulgent light. He bought later
editions of the afternoon papers that he might rehearse the episode
from his new point of view, and was disappointed to find that where
some fresh sensation had not crowded him from print altogether, he was
dismissed to out-of-the way corners which nobody read. Yet this, too,
he met with a statesman's broad philosophy.

"Lady in hansom wants to speak with you, sir."

Shelby had drifted into the shopping district with some vague notion of
visiting a wax-works museum, dear to the rural heart, and was loitering
among the novelty fakirs who lined the crowded thoroughfare. He turned
to confront the liveried carriage attendant of one of the great
department stores, who, indicating a cab at the curb, repeated his
message. With the hansom's doors thrown wide to display her gown, sat
Mrs. Hilliard, smiling.

The man strode to her side and caught her outstretched hand.

"Cora," he exclaimed, in undertone, "you're the handsomest woman on the
street!"

If there had been anything more remote from his purpose than this
meeting, it was this speech. He knew of her presence in the city, he
knew her address; but from prudential motives he did not precisely
formulate he had determined not to go to her.

"Get in," she murmured, her pleasing color heightening. "We mustn't
block the way."

Such superior tact in the face of urban conditions impressed him,--he
would have stood gossiping, as in New Babylon's sluggish streets,--and
almost without volition he obeyed.

"The Avenue," directed Mrs. Hilliard.

"Which?" asked cabby, his florid face filling the trap.

"Fifth, of course," said the lady, with annoyance.

It has been remarked that Mrs. Hilliard aimed to be cosmopolitan, and
it is pertinent to add that one of