tter put the rackets down and go and rest
ourselves."

"What rest? Oh, Jack,--what rest is there?"

"Try somebody else."

"Can you tell me to do that!"

"Certainly I can. Look at my cousin Adelaide."

"Your cousin Adelaide never cared for any human being in her life
except herself. She had no punishment to suffer as I have. Oh, Jack! I
do so love you." Then she rushed at him, and fell upon his bosom, and
wept.

He knew that this would come, and he felt that, upon the whole, this
was the worst part of the performance. He could bear her anger or her
sullenness with fortitude, but her lachrymose caresses were
insupportable. He held her, however, in his arms, and gazed at himself
in the pier glass most uncomfortably over her shoulder. "Oh, Jack," she
said, "oh, Jack,--what is to come next?" His face became somewhat more
lugubrious than before, but he said not a word. "I cannot lose you
altogether. There is no one else in the wide world that I care for.
Papa thinks of nothing but his whist. Aunt Ju, with her 'Rights of
Women,' is an old fool."

"Just so," said Jack, still holding her, and still looking very
wretched.

"What shall I do if you leave me?"

"Pick up some one that has a little money. I know it sounds bad and
mercenary, and all that, but in our way of life there is nothing else
to be done. We can't marry like the ploughboy and milkmaid?"

"I could."

"And would be the first to find out your mistake afterwards. It's all
very well saying that Adelaide hasn't got a heart. I dare say she has
as much heart as you or me."

"As you;--as you."

"Very well. Of course you have a sort of pleasure in abusing me. But
she has known what she could do, and what she could not. Every year as
she grows older she will become more comfortable. Houghton is very good
to her, and she has lots of money to spend. If that's heartlessness
there's a good deal to be said for it." Then he gently disembarrassed
himself of her arms, and placed her on a sofa.

"And this is to be the end?"

"Well,--I think so really." She thumped her hand upon the head of the
sofa as a sign of her anger. "Of course we shall always be friends?"

"Never," she almost screamed.

"We'd better. People will talk less about it, you know."

"I don't care what people talk. If they knew the truth, no one would
ever speak to you again."

"Good bye, Guss." She shook her head, as he had shaken his before. "Say
a word to a fellow." Again she shook her h