?"

"But why this lady in particular?" asked Leslie, who was at the moment
studying a theme which no man knows more about to-day than was known in
the days of Aristotle--that of chances and coincidences.

"Oh," said Joe, fumbling in her pocket for other slips, and drawing them
out and exhibiting them with great gravity, to the infinite amusement at
least of Leslie. "Oh, I have been preparing myself, and found the best.
Here is a 'Madame R.,' who has 'just arrived in the city and taken a
room at No. 7 Pickle Place.' That would never do, you see. 'Taken a
room' is too suggestive of limited accommodations and no carpet on a
very dirty stair. Then here is another, in which 'Madame Francena
Guessberg' promises to 'give information about absent friends' and to
'show the faces of future husbands.' Most of my friends who are absent I
never wish to hear of again; and as to the husbands, I shall see them
all soon enough, if not too soon."

"Hem!" said Leslie, though scarcely knowing why he made that comment.

"That is all," continued the wild girl. "All the rest are insignificant
or impossible, except--no, here is one who promises to 'call names.' Now
if there is any thing in the world that I don't like except when I do it
myself, it is 'calling names.' And now see Madame Boutell. There is
nothing of the petty or the insignificant about _her_. She has the
'stars' at command, and is about to open the 'unknown world.' She is
_the_ woman, of course! Knows all about the 'great events' of life.
Can't be humbugged, and keeps a secret as a steel-trap holds a rat. And
now, will you go with us, and protect us, and--Mr. Harding said you were
a newspaper man,--will you take down a full, true and circumstantial
account of all that occurs? That is what I have been trying to get at
for this quarter of an hour. Will you go with us?"

"You are going to-day, then?" asked Leslie.

"Miss Harris insisted upon my accompanying her, and I half consented to
do so," said Miss Bell Crawford, apologetically.

"Fiddlestick!" said the merry riddle. "Don't try to beg out of it, Miss
Bell! She sent her carriage home, Mr. Leslie, so that we need not be
seen going there with it; and there we were going, two lovely and
unprotected females, when providence raised up a champion in the person
of our new friend."

"Who hopes yet to be an _old_ friend, and who will go with you, with the
greatest pleasure," said Leslie. "At the same time"--reflecting a
moment-