id="id00329">"Yes."

"What is the matter with it?"

"Nothing—a nail—Miss Lothrop, you have no wine."

"Nothing! and a nail!" cried Miss Julia as Lois covered her glass with her hand and forbade the wine. "As if a nail were not enough to ruin a horse! O you careless boy! Miss Lothrop is more of a philosopher than you are. She drinks no wine."

Tom passed on, speaking to other ladies. Lois had scarcely spoken at all; but Miss Caruthers thought she could discern a little stir in the soft colour of the cheeks and a little additional life in the grave soft eyes; and she wished Tom heartily at a distance.

At a distance, however, he was no more that day. He made himself gracefully busy indeed with the rest of his mother's guests; but after they quitted the table, he contrived to be at Lois's side, and asked if she would not like to see the greenhouse? It was a welcome proposition, and while nobody at the moment paid any attention to the two young people, they passed out by a glass door at the other end of the dining-room into the conservatory, while the stream of guests went the other way. Then Lois was plunged in a wilderness of green leafage and brilliant bloom, warm atmosphere and mixed perfume; her first breath was an involuntary exclamation of delight and relief.

"Ah! you like this better than the other room, don't you?" said Tom.

Lois did not answer; however, she went with such an absorbed expression from one plant to another, that Tom must needs conclude she liked this better than the other company too.

"I never saw such a beautiful greenhouse," she said at last, "nor so large a one."

"This is not much," replied Tom. "Most of our plants are in the country—where I have come from to-day; this is just a city affair. Shampuashuh don't cultivate exotics, then?"

"O no! Nor anything much, except the needful."

"That sounds rather—tiresome," said Tom.

"O, it is not tiresome. One does not get tired of the needful, you know."

"Don't you! I do," said Tom. "Awfully. But what do you do for pleasure then, up there in Shampuashuh?"

"Pleasure? O, we have it—I have it— But we do not spend much time in the search of it. O how beautiful! what is that?"

"It's got some long name—Metrosideros, I believe. What do you do for pleasure up there then, Miss Lothrop?"

"Dig clams."

"Clams!" cried Tom.

"Yes. Long clams. It's great fun. But I find pleasure all over."

"How come you to be such a philosopher?"

"That is not philosophy."

"What is it? I can tell you, there isn't a girl in New York that would say what you have just said."

Lois thought the faces around the lunch table had quite harmonized with this statement. She forgot them again in a most luxuriant trailing Pelargonium covered with large white blossoms of great elegance.

"But it is philosophy that makes you not drink wine? Or don't you like it?"

"O no," said Lois, "it is not philosophy; it is humanity."

"How? I think it is humanity to share in people's social pleasures."

"If they were harmless."

"This is harmless!"

Lois shook her head. "To you, maybe."

"And to you. Then why shouldn't we take it?"

"For the sake of others, to whom it is not harmless."

"They must look out for themselves."

"Yes, and we must help them."

"We can't help them. If a man hasn't strength enough to stand, you cannot hold him up."

"O yes," said Lois gently, "you can and you must. That is not much to do! When on one side it is life, and on the other side it is only a minute's taste of something sweet, it is very little, I think, to give up one for the other."

"That is because you are so good," said Tom. "I am not so good."

At this instant a voice was heard within, and sounds of the servants removing the lunch dishes.

"I never heard anybody in my life talk as you do," Tom went on.

Lois thought she had talked enough, and would say no more. Tom saw she would not, and gave her glance after glance of admiration, which began to grow into veneration. What a pure creature was this! what a gentle simplicity, and yet what a quiet dignity! what absolutely natural sweetness, with no airs whatever! and what a fresh beauty.

"I think it must be easier to be good where you live," Tom added presently, and sincerely.

"Why?" said Lois.

"I assure you it ain't easy for a fellow here."

"What do you mean by 'good,' Mr. Caruthers? not drinking wine?" said
Lois, somewhat amused.

"I mean, to be like you," said he softly. "You are better than all the rest of us here."

"I hope not. Mr. Caruthers, we must go back to Mrs. Wishart, or certainly she will not think me good."

So they went back, through the empty lunch room.

"I thought you would be here to-day," said Tom. "I was not going to miss the pleasure; so I took a frightfully early train, and despatched business faster than it had ever been despatched before, at our house. I surprised the people, almost as much as I surprised my mother and Julia. You ought always to wear a white camellia in your hair!"

Lois smiled to herself. If he knew what things she had to do at her own home, and how such an adornment would be in place! Was it easier to be good there? she queried. It was easier to be pleased here. The guests were mostly gone.

"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Wishart on the drive home, "how have you enjoyed yourself?"

Lois looked grave. "I am afraid it turns my head," she answered.

"That shows your head is not turned. It must carry a good deal of ballast too, somewhere."

"It does," said Lois. "And I don't like to have my head turned."

"Tom," said Miss Julia, as Mrs. Wishart's carriage drove off and Tom came back to the drawing-room, "you mustn't turn that little girl's head."

"I can't," said Tom.

"You are trying."

"I am doing nothing of the sort."

"Then what are you doing? You are paying her a great deal of attention. She is not accustomed to our ways; she will not understand it. I do not think it is fair to her."

"I don't mean anything that is not fair to her. She is worth attention ten times as much as all the rest of the girls that were here to-day."

"But, Tom, she would not take it as coolly. She knows only country ways. She might think attentions mean more than they do."

"I don't care," said Tom.

"My dear boy," said his mother now, "it will not do, not to care. It would not be honourable to raise hopes you do not mean to fulfil; and to take such a girl for your wife, would be simply ruinous."

"Where will you find such another girl?" cried Tom, flaring up.

"But she has nothing, and she is nobody."

"She is her own sweet self," said Tom.

"But not an advantageous wife for you, my dear. Society does not know her, and she does not know society. Your career would be a much more humble one with her by your side. And money you want, too. You need it, to get on properly; as I wish to see you get on, and as you wish it your self. My dear