you to meet them. May I leave my judicial decision open until then?"

"Certainly. Pray over it," said Cuthbert, rising; "and if you don't come out on my side, openly,—as I know you are in your mind,—buy a wire mask. I won't have any dodging."

"Come early. There is a secret to tell," laughed Mr. Bailey as he withdrew, and then he blushed furiously. "Mother's secret," he added, as he closed the door behind him.

The evening of the dinner the Wagners were later than they had intended to be, and Mrs. Bailey took Nora aside and said quite abruptly:

"I've got to pop it at you rather suddenly. Why didn't you come earlier? The lady whom Ned is to marry is here, and it is for her I have given the dinner. Ned went to your house to tell you last week, but his heart failed him. He said you were all in such a gale of nonsense that he concluded to wait. It is a very tender subject with him, I assure you. His case is quite hopeless. He is madly in love, and I am very much pleased with his choice. She seems as nearly perfect as they ever are, and she is unusually talented. But here is Ned now. I have told her all about it, my son, come and be congratulated."

He came forward shyly enough for a man of his years and experience, and took Nora's hand in a helpless way. But Cuthbert relieved matters at once by a hearty "Well, it is splendid, old fellow. I'm delighted. I—"

"But before the others come down," broke in Mr. Bailey, as if to get away from the subject, "I want to get my discharge papers in that case you plead before me last week. It lies heavy on my soul, for I am very sorry to say, Mrs. Wagner, that I am compelled to give judgment against you and your client. I think she was—I'm with Cuthbert this time. She impresses me as almost without redeeming qualities. I do not wish to make her acquaintance. I am sure that I could never force myself to take even a passing interest in that sort of a moral acrobat. Really, the lovely but selfish Julia would be my choice in a team of vicious little pacers like that. I'm sure I should detect your friend's fatal weakness in her every action. I should be unable to see anything but the hideous green-eyed monster even in the folds of her lace gowns or the coils of her shining hair. He would appear to me, ghost-like, peering over her shoulder in the midst of her most fascinating conversation. I should feel his fangs and see the glitter of his wicked eyes while I tried to say small nothings to her, and—"

"Oh, not at all," protested Nora. "You would never detect it at all unless she happened to be fighting for your esteem or admiration where she felt that odds were against her. She—"

"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Wagner, but I am quite sure that I should. Envy is to me the very worst trait in the human character. I could more easily excuse or be blinded to anything else. I know that I should detect it at once. I always do—especially in a woman."

"Certainly. Anybody could. You know very well, Nora, that I saw—" began Cuthbert quite gleefully; but as a salve to her wounded feelings Mr. Bailey added in a tone of conciliation to Nora:

"However, I shall agree to let you test me some day. Present your friend to me, incog., and I'll wager—oh, anything that I shall read her like a book on sight. I'm a splendid judge of a woman. Always was from childhood. I'm sure that I should feel creepy the moment I saw the brilliant but envious granddaughter of the unfortunate old warrior. And by the way, he continues to be the one for whom you have enlisted my sympathy. I wonder that he was able to live two weeks in the same house with such a—"

"Cat," said Cuthbert, with a vicious jab at a paper-weight which represented a solemn-looking Chinese god in brocade trousers. He was just turning to enter into a cheerful and elaborate statement of his side of the controversy, as Mrs. Bailey swept down the room with her son's betrothed upon her arm, smiling and happy.

"Margaret Mintern!" exclaimed Nora, in dismay, and then—

"I am so glad to see you again, dear, and to be able to congratulate you, instead of some fair unknown, upon the fact that you are to have so dear a friend of ours for a husband. We think everything of Mr. Bailey. He is Bert's best friend and—"

Cuthbert had turned half away in utter confusion when he saw the ladies coming down the room, and feigned an absorption in the rotund Chinese deity which he had never displayed for the one of his own nation. But he bowed now, and mumbled some inarticulate sounds as he looked, not at the future Mrs. Bailey, but at the ridiculously happy face of her lover, whose usually ready tongue was silent as he hung upon the lightest tone of the brilliant woman beside him. As they passed into the dining-room, Nora managed to say to her husband:

"Thank heaven we did not mention her name to him, and he evidently does not suspect. Pull yourself together and stumble through your part the best you can, dear, without attracting his attention. And then you know that he and you agree perfectly about the—cat," she added wickedly, and then she smiled quietly as she took her seat next to the blissful lover and the relentless judge of the school friend of her youth.