ge of
costume. She smiled happily as she caught a glimpse of herself in the
mirror. Her eyes were starlike, her whole expression was perfectly
radiant.

"And you're responsible for it all, you little imp!" She shook her
finger at the fat, bright blue pitcher with flaming vermilion roses on
either side, as it stood on the mantelpiece in blissful
unconsciousness of its total depravity.

In less than twenty minutes Nancy was dressed for the street and on
her way to the railroad station. Ten minutes later two telegrams
flashed over the wires. One ran:

MRS. JONATHAN BROWNING, West Seventy-second Street, New York
City: Will spend to-night with you. Arrive about ten. Don't meet
me. NANCY.

The second one was more brief:

MR. PHILIP PEIRCE. Princeton Club, New York City: Dine with me
to-night at Scarlatti's at seven. ANNE WARREN.

Not until Nancy, after dismissing the hansom, found herself solitary
and alone on the sidewalk in front of the gayly lighted little
Bohemian restaurant, did she realize the foolishness, the craziness,
of her undertaking. In fact, she had no very clear idea of what that
undertaking was.

She looked after the retreating hansom, and a wretched,
half-frightened homesickness swept over her.

Suppose Phil had not received the telegram! Suppose, receiving it, he
had refused to come! She couldn't blame him, although he had once said
that, no matter what----

And then--in speaking of it afterward, Nancy always declared that it
was a positive physiological fact that at that moment her heart was
located somewhere in the roof of her mouth--some one caught both her
hands in his, some one's glad voice cried "Nance!" and in the
twinkling of an eye the homesickness and the memory of the weeks of
wretchedness had vanished, and all the misery of the past and all the
uncertainty of the future were swallowed up in the joy of the present.

"I'm so sorry to be late." Phil's voice was as remorseful as though he
had committed _all_ of the seven deadly sins. "I received your
telegram just as I was leaving the club to keep an engagement. Took me
ten minutes at the 'phone to break the engagement decently. Jove! but
I am glad to see you," he went on, enthusiastically.

"I hoped you would be, but of course I didn't know." It was not at all
what Nancy had intended to say, but her heart thumped so furiously
that she could scarcely think. She was mortally afraid that Phil would
hear it pounding a