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"Well, how do I know—" the other began. "Pshaw! you know my reason well enough. I am better off here. I should only be a bore and encumbrance among your gay friends."

"They're not my friends," was the reply, given with undiminished good nature. "Besides, they're gone. My mother and sister are quite by themselves now. Hold on, though," he cried, a moment after; "there is some one else,—Miss Denton,—Agnes Denton, an old school-mate of Ray's, whom I have never seen; a young woman of your own style, I should say, if I did not know you owned no preferences in that line; one of the dead-in-earnest sort; had a fortune left her, which she spends in all manner of charities and reforms; has founded a lot of institutions—"

"Oh, I hate that sort of affectation more than any other," his friend broke in impatiently.

"Of course, if you know it is an affectation," the other cheerfully assented. "Well, what do you say?" rising and placing his hand affectionately on his companion's shoulder.

The latter turned and met the bright, boyish face of his friend, which presented such a contrast to his own dark, grim countenance.

"Can't you go without me?" he asked, in a reluctant tone.

"I can, but I won't."

"Oh, well, then, to please you—" And, bidding the other an abrupt good-night, he went out and left him.

Horace Palmer, as the black-lettered inscription on the glass-panelled door of the little law-office describes him to our better acquaintance, laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and, sitting down to his desk, dashed off the following letter:

"My dear Sister,—My friend Julius Ware and myself will arrive at Mapletop Friday evening. I have told you so much about Ware that I need not describe him over again here. He holds the same hard, uncomfortable notions about things—life, duty, and all that—as ever, which he means to put into practice this fall by going out to Dakota as missionary, though he has had a fine offer of one of the Rochester pulpits. He is a grand fellow, and I owe everything to him. You are to take no trouble about his entertainment. He hates so- ciety, and anything in the picnic or lawn-party line would drive him back to B——— on the first train. I hope your friend is not of the strong-minded kind, with spectacles and a high forehead. He dislikes that kind of women most of any. Until Friday, then, and always,

Ray Palmer read her brother's letter through twice, and sat twisting it in her fingers with a perplexed and rather irritated look. She was seated in her room,—a cool, spacious apartment, furnished and adorned with reference to the season and the dainty, capricious tastes of the owner. But Ray herself was its chief ornament. To describe her as small and slight of figure, with quick, graceful movements, a fair skin, blue eyes, of the wide, innocent expression of a child's, and pale, fluffy brown hair gathered high on the head in a mass of clustering braids and curls,—to describe details like these is not to present a complete portrait of Ray Palmer. But the more recondite traits of character and disposition must be left to the reader's discovery. A few months' experience in the gay capital city, the social centre of the State, where Ray had spent the previous winter with an aunt, under whose brilliant chaperonage she had won unnumbered plaudits and triumphs as the rising belle of the season, had not spoiled, though it had pleased and a little elated her. So far, Ray had made acquaintance with only the bright and pleasant side of things. She considered herself as belonging to the ordinary run of mortals, and was contented in the knowledge that most of her friends dwelt on the same comfortable plane. Ray admired greatness and respected it,—all the more, perhaps, that she had never come in very close contact with it. Mr. Julius Ware was not great, of course, but he was