ave become habits and rule you all."

Ethel sighed.

"We are a hollow set, I'll admit," she said, "and leave the price tag on
all we give away; but still you do not answer my question."

"No, and no man or woman can," he responded. "As they say on the street,
'it's a gamble either way.' If you marry for love and secure a cottage,
you will sigh for a mansion. If you obtain the mansion and miss the
love, you will sigh for the cottage."

Then looking at the vase of roses standing near, as if they exhaled a
revelation, he added slowly, "You will be true to your surroundings,
Ethel, and whoever buys you will pay your price."

She flushed slightly.

"You put it into unvarnished words," she answered, laughing to conceal
the hurt, "but I can't complain. I asked you for the truth." Then, in
self-defence, she added, a little sadly, "It's not my fault, Winn, that
I am for sale; it's the fault of society and its dictum. I say at times,
as I said to-night, that sentiment is folly; and then again comes a
yearning for something sweeter, something better than this life of show
and shallow platitudes. Occasionally I feel it all a mistake, and envy
Grace. Last summer, when I was up in the mountains, we went driving one
day and stopped at a farmhouse to buy a glass of milk. The house was a
hovel almost; two little children barefooted and bareheaded played under
a tree, and inside a woman was singing. When she brought us the milk,
she, too, was barefoot. We passed that way later, on our return, and she
was still singing at her work. And, in spite of her surroundings, there
was something in her voice that awoke my envy. Her life was poverty
personified; there wasn't another house in sight, and yet she was
happy."

And Winn, wondering what this all meant and marvelling that this
imperative beauty, this leader of fashion, courted, flattered, and
sought by all, could have one such touch of human feeling, looked at her
in utter astonishment.

"Ethel," he said, "almost am I persuaded that you have a heart."

"You had better not," she answered, with a laugh that was a sneer, "you
might pity me, and then I should despise myself;" and, pulling out one
of the roses that drooped toward the table, she slowly picked it to
pieces.

"Life is but a succession of moods, Winn," she continued, after a pause;
"and some contain the rustle of angels' wings and some the clicking of
devils' teeth. At times I hate the whole world and envy the nuns I me