club perhaps. The old book-keeper in the store where I work, perhaps Miss Masters."

"And you have me," he interrupted. But she smiled at him and shook her head. "You were real kind about the play," said she, "but the play's all over now. I guess you'd better tell your friend that I'll take the position. I have been getting pretty tired of work in the store and I'd like to try this if he don't mind."

"Oh, but you mustn't go into it like that," Burgess protested, "just for the want of something better. Acting is an art—a great art—you must be glad and proud."

"I'll try it," she said without enthusiasm. "If you feel that way about it I'll try it. It can't be worse than the store. The store is just horrible. Oh! Mr. Burgess you can't think what it is to be Ophelia in the evening with princes loving you and then to be a cashier in the day-time that any fresh customer thinks he can get gay with. Maybe if I was an actress I could be Ophelia oftener. I'd do anything, Mr. Burgess, to get away from the store."

Burgess did not answer immediately. Her earnestness had rather overcome her and he waited silently while she walked to the window, surreptitiously pressed her handkerchief against her eyes and conquered the sobs that threatened to choke her. Burgess watched her. The trimness of her figure, the absolute neatness and propriety of her dress, the poise and restraint of her manner. Then she turned and he rose to meet her.

"Mary," said he, "you never in all the time I've known you have failed to do what I asked you. Will you do something for me now?"

"Yes, sir," she answered simply.

"Then sit down in that chair and take this watch of mine in your hand and don't say one single, solitary, lonely word for five minutes. No matter what happens: no matter what anyone says or does. Will you promise?"

"Yes, sir," she answered again.

"Well then," he began, "I know another man who wants you—this stage idea is not the only way out of the store. Remember you're not to speak—this other man wants to marry you."

A scarlet flush sprang to Mary's face and slowly ebbed away again leaving her deadly pale. She kept her word in letter but hardly in spirit for she looked at him through tear-filled eyes, and shook her head.

"Of course you can't be expected to take to the idea just at first," said he, as if she had spoken, "but I want you to think it over. The man is a well-off, gentlemanly sort of chap. Miles too old for you of course—for you're not twenty and he's nearly forty—but I think he would make you happy. I know he'd try with all the strength that's in him."

Blank incredulity was on Mary's face. She glanced at the watch and up at him and again she shook her head.

"This man," Burgess went on, "is a friend of Miss Masters and it was through her that he first heard of the Lady Hyacinths. He was an idler then. A shiftless, worthless loafer, but the Lady Hyacinths made a man of him and he's gone out and got a job."

Comprehension overwhelming, overmastering, flashed into Mary's eyes. But her promise held her silent and in her chair. Again it was as though she had spoken.

"Yes, I see you understand—you probably think of me as an old man past the time of love and yet I love you."

"That's all I have to offer you, sweetheart. Just love and my life," and he in turn went to the window and looked out into the gathering dusk.

Mary sat absolutely still. She knew now that she was dreaming. Just so the dream had always run and when the five minutes were past, she rose and went to him: a true Ophelia, her arms all full of hyacinths.

"My honored Lord," said she. He turned, and the dream held.

THERE'S DANGER IN NUMBERS

The Pennsylvania Limited was approaching Jersey City and the afternoon was approaching three o'clock when Mr. John Blake turned to Mrs. John Blake, née Marjorie Underwood, a bride of about three hours, and precipitated the first discussion of their hitherto happy married life.

"Your Uncle Richard Underwood," said he—the earlier discussions in the wedded state are usually founded upon relations—"is as stupid as he is kind. It was very good of him to arrange that I should meet old Nicholson. Any young fellow in the country would give his eyes for the chance. But to make an appointment for a fellow at four o'clock in the afternoon of his wedding day is a thing of which no one, except your Uncle Richard, would be capable. He might have known that I couldn't go."

"But you must go," urged the bride, "it's the chance of a lifetime. Besides which," she added with a pretty little air of practicality, "we can't afford to throw away an opportunity like this. We may never get another one, and if you don't go how are you to explain it to Uncle Richard when we dine there to-morrow night?—you know we promised to, when he was last at West Hills."

"But what," suggested her husband—"what if, in grasping at the shadow, I lose the reality? I'd rather lose twenty opportunities than my only wife, and what's to become of you while I go down to Broad Street? Do you propose to sit in the station?"

"I propose nothing of the kind," she laughed. "I shall go straight to the Ruissillard and wait for you. Dick and Gladys may be there already."

Although Mr. John Blake received this suggestion with elaborate disfavor and disclaimer it was clear to the pretty eyes of Mrs. John Blake that he hailed it with delight, and she was full of theories upon marital co-operation and of eagerness to put them into practice. None of her husband's objections could daunt her, and before he had adjusted himself to the situation he had packed his wife into a hansom, given the cabman careful instructions and a careless tip, and was standing on the step admonishing his bride:

"Be sure to tell them that we must have out-side rooms. Have the baggage sent up, but don't touch it. If you open a trunk or lift a tray before I arrive I shall instantly send you home to your mother as incorrigible."

"Very well," she agreed; "I'll be good."

"And then, if Gladys is there—it's only an off-chance that they come before to-morrow—get her to sit with you. But don't go wandering about the hotel by yourself. And, above all, don't go out."

"Goosie," said she, "of course I shan't go out. Where should I go?"

"And you're sure, sure, sure that you don't mind?" he asked for the dozenth time.

"Goosie," said she again, "I am quite, quite sure of it. Now go or you will surely miss your appointment and disappoint your uncle."

After two or three more questions of his and assurances of hers the cab was allowed to swing out into the current. John had given the driver careful navigation orders, and Marjorie leaned back contentedly enough and watched the busy people, all hot and haggard, as New York's people sometimes are in the first warm days of May. Her collection of illustrated post-cards had prepared her to identify many of the places she passed, but once or twice she felt, a little ruefully the difference between this, her actual first glimpse of New York and the same first glimpse as she and John had planned it before the benign, but hardly felicitous, interference of Uncle Richard. This feeling of loneliness was strongly in the ascendent when the cab stopped under an ornate portico and two large male creatures, in powdered wigs and white silk stockings, emerged before her astonished eyes. Open flew her little door, down jumped the cabman, out rushed other menials and laid hands upon her baggage. Horses fretted, pedestrians risked their lives, motors snorted and newsboys clamored as an enormous police-appearing person assisted her to alight. He had such an air of having been expecting and longing for