autobiography nor an inspired story, the world's view of Peter Stirling must be adopted without regard to its accuracy. And because this view was the sum of his past and personal, these elements must be computed before we can know on what the world based its conclusions concerning him.

His story was as ordinary and prosaic as Mr. and Mrs. Pierce seemed to think his character. Neither riches nor poverty had put a shaping hand to it. The only child of his widowed mother, he had lived in one of the smaller manufacturing cities of New England a life such as falls to most lads. Unquestionably he had been rather more shielded from several forms of temptation than had most of his playmates, for his mother's isolation had made him not merely her son, but very largely her companion. In certain ways this had tended to make him more manly than the average fellow of his age, but in others it had retarded his development; and this backwardness had been further accentuated by a deliberate mind, which hardly kept pace with his physical growth. His school record was fair: "Painstaking, but slow," was the report in studies. "Exemplary," in conduct. He was not a leader among the boys, but he was very generally liked. A characteristic fact, for good or bad, was that he had no enemies. From the clergyman to the "hired help," everybody had a kind word for him, but tinctured by no enthusiasm. All spoke of him as "a good boy," and when this was said, they had nothing more to say.

One important exception to this statement is worthy of note. The girls of the High School never liked him. If they had been called upon for reasons, few could have given a tangible one. At their age, everything this world contains, be it the Falls of Niagara, or a stick of chewing gum, is positively or negatively "nice." For some crime of commission or omission, Peter had been weighed and found wanting. "He isn't nice," was the universal verdict of the scholars who daily filed through the door, which the town selectmen, with the fine contempt of the narrow man for his unpaid "help," had labelled, "For Females." If they had said that he was "perfectly horrid," there might have been a chance for him. But the subject was begun and ended with these three words. Such terseness in the sex was remarkable and would have deserved a psychological investigation had it been based on any apparent data. But women's opinions are so largely a matter of instinct and feeling, and so little of judgment and induction, that an analysis of the mental processes of the hundred girls who had reached this one conclusion, would probably have revealed in each a different method of obtaining this product. The important point is to recognize this consensus of opinion, and to note its bearing on the development of the lad.

That Peter could remain ignorant of this feeling was not conceivable. It puzzled him not a little when he first began to realize the prejudice, and he did his best to reverse it. Unfortunately he took the very worst way. Had he avoided the girls persistently and obviously, he might have interested them intensely, for nothing is more difficult for a woman to understand than a woman-hater; and from the days of mother Eve the unknown is rumored to have had for her sex a powerful fascination. But he tried to win their friendship by humbleness and kindness, and so only made himself the more cheap in their eyes. "Fatty Peter," as they jokingly called him, epitomized in two words their contempt of him.

Nor did things mend when he went to Harvard. Neither his mother's abilities nor his choice were able to secure for him an entrée to the society which Cambridge and Boston dole out stintedly to certain privileged collegians. Every Friday afternoon he went home, to return by an early train Monday morning. In his first year it is to be questioned if he exchanged ten words with women whose names were known to him, except during these home-visits. That this could long continue, was impossible. In his second year he was several times taken by his chum, Watts D'Alloi, to call. But always with one result. Invariably Peter would be found talking to Mamma, or, better still, from his point of view, with Pater-familias, while Watts chatted with the presumptive attractions. Watts laughed at him always. Laughed still more when one of these calls resulted in a note, "requesting the pleasure" of Mr. Peter Stirling's company to dinner. It was Watts who dictated the acceptance, helped Peter put the finishing touches to his toilet, and eventually landed him safely in Mrs. Purdie's parlor. His description to the boys that night of what followed is worthy of quotation:

"The old fellow shook hands with Mrs. P., O.K. Something was said about the weather, and then Mrs. P. said, 'I'll introduce you to the lady you are to take down, Mr. Stirling, but I shan't let you talk to her before dinner. Look about you and take your choice of whom you would like to meet?' Chum gave one agonized look round the room. There wasn't a woman over twenty-five in sight! And what do you think the wily old fox said? Call him simple! Not by a circumstance! A society beau couldn't have done it better. Can't guess? Well, he said, 'I'd like to talk to you, Mrs. Purdie.' Fact! Of course she took it as a compliment, and was as pleased as could be. Well, I don't know how on earth he ever got through his introduction or how he ever reached the dining-room, for my inamorata was so pretty that I thought of nothing till we were seated, and the host took her attention for a moment. Then I looked across at chum, who was directly opposite, to see how he was getting on. Oh, you fellows would have died to see it! There he sat, looking straight out into vacancy, so plainly laboring for something to say that I nearly exploded. Twice he opened his lips to speak, and each time closed them again. The girl of course looked surprised, but she caught my eye, and entered into the joke, and we both waited for developments. Then she suddenly said to him, 'Now let's talk about something else.' It was too much for me. I nearly choked. I don't know what followed. Miss Jevons turned and asked me something. But when I looked again, I could see the perspiration standing on Peter's forehead, while the conversation went by jerks and starts as if it was riding over a ploughed field. Miss Callender, whom he took in, told me afterwards that she had never had a harder evening's work in her life. Nothing but 'yeses' and 'noes' to be got from him. She wouldn't believe what I said of the old fellow."

Three or four such experiences ended Peter's dining out. He was recognized as unavailable material. He received an occasional card to a reception or a dance, for anything in trousers passes muster for such functions. He always went when invited, and was most dutiful in the counter-calls. In fact, society was to him a duty which he discharged with the same plodding determination with which he did his day's studies. He never dreamed of taking his social moments frivolously. He did not recognize that society is very much like a bee colony—stinging those who approached it shyly and quietly, but to be mastered by a bold beating of tin pans. He neither danced nor talked, and so he was shunted by the really pleasant girls and clever women, and passed his time with wall-flowers and unbearables, who, in their normal sourness, regarded and, perhaps, unconsciously made him feel, hardly to his encouragement, that his companionship was a sort of penance. If he had been asked, at the end of his senior year, what he thought of young women and society, he would probably have stigmatized them, as he himself had been formerly: "not nice." All of which, again to apply Mr. Pierce's theory, merely meant that the phases which his own characteristics had shown him, had re-acted on his own mind, and had led him to conclude that girls and society were equally unendurable.

The condition was a dangerous one, and if psychology had its doctors they would have predicted a serious heart illness in store for him. How serious, would depend largely on whether the fever