tossed it upon the floor with every mark of disdain.

"What species of mental disorder does this place represent?" she demanded.

"It is sacred to the fine arts, apparently; an endowed tea-room, where persons of artistic ideals may come to refresh body and soul. Such at least seems to be the programme. This is only my second visit, but I have long heard it spoken of by artists, poets, and others of my friends."

"I am sixty-two years old, young man, and I beg to inform you that I consider the Asolando the most preposterous thing I have ever heard of in this most preposterous city. And from a casual glimpse of you I feel justified in saying that a man in your apparent physical health might be in better business than frequenting, in mid-afternoon, a shop that seems to be a remarkably stupid expression of twentieth-century anæmia."

"Attendance here is not compulsory," I remarked defensively.

"If you imply that I must have sought the place voluntarily, let me correct your false impression immediately. I dropped in here for the excellent reason that this shop is the seventh in numerical progression from Fifth Avenue."

"You were not guided by any feeling of interest, then, but rather by superstition?"

"That remark is unworthy of a man of your apparent intelligence. I was born on the seventh of November, and all the great events of my life have occurred on the seventh of the month. If you were to suggest that I am of an adventurous or romantic nature, I should readily acquiesce; but the sevens in my life have been so potent an influence in all my affairs that my belief in that numeral has become almost a religious faith; and if you have been a reader of Scripture you will understand that one does not become a pagan in ascribing to seven all manner of subtle influences."

I was relieved to find that she accepted the tea and sandwiches the waitress had brought without parley. It is with shame I confess that in the first moments of my encounter I believed her capable of quarreling with a waitress; but she thanked the girl pleasantly, lifting her head with a smile that illumined her face attractively. Her demand for a cocktail had not been wholly convincing as to her sincerity, and I wondered whether she were not playing a part of some kind. She suggested pleasant and wholesome things—tiny gardens with neat borders of box and primly-ordered beds of spicy, old-fashioned pinks before the day of carnations, and the verbenas, heliotrope, and honeysuckle we associate with our grandmothers' taste in floriculture. Or perhaps I strike nearer the gold with an intimation of a sunny window-ledge, banked neatly and not too abundantly in geraniums.

In any event the impression was wholly agreeable. I had to do with a lady and a lady of no mean degree. The marks of breeding were upon her, and she spoke with that quiet authority that is the despair of the vain and vulgar. Her features were small and delicate; her ringless hands were perfectly formed, and both face and hands belied the age to which she had so frankly confessed. She was more than twice my age, and there was not the slightest reason why she should not address me if it pleased her to do so; and her obsession as to the potency of the numeral seven was not in itself proof of an ill-balanced mind. I recalled that my own mother had, throughout her life, imputed all manner of occult powers and influences to the number thirteen, and I have myself always been averse to walking beneath a ladder. Musing thus, I reached the conclusion that this encounter was very likely the sort of thing that happened to patrons of the Asolando. My time has, however, a certain value, and I began to wonder just how I should escape. I was about to excuse myself when my companion suddenly put down her cup and addressed me with a directness that seemed habitual in her.

"I have formed an excellent opinion of your bringing up from the manner in which you have suffered my advances, if I may so call them. You act and speak like a gentleman of education. I imagine from your being in this strange place that you may be a water-colorist or a designer of l'art-nouveau wall-papers, though I trust for your own sake that I am mistaken. Or it may be that you are a magazine poet, though when I tell you that I read no poets but Isaiah and Walt Whitman, you will understand that mere verse does not attract me. All this"—and she indicated the mottoes on the wall with a slight movement of the head—"is the sheerest rubbish, a form of disease. Will you kindly tell me the nature of your occupation?"

I produced one of my professional cards.

ARNOLD AMES

CONSULTANT IN CHIMNEYS
Suite 92, Landon Building

She read it aloud without glasses and mused a moment.

"This is very curious," she remarked, placing my card in a silver case she drew from her pocket. "This is very curious indeed. It was only yesterday that my friend General Glendenning was speaking of you. He told me that you had rendered him the greatest service in adjusting several flues in his country house at Shinnecock. My own fireplaces doubtless require attention, and you may consider yourself retained. I shall make an early appointment with you. You will find my name and residence sufficiently described on this card."

Miss Hollister

HOPEFIELD MANOR

"Oh!" I exclaimed, bowing. "Any further introduction is unnecessary, Miss Hollister."

"The name is familiar? I recall that General Glendenning mentioned that you were related to the Ames family of Hartford, and your mother was a Farquhar of Charlottesville, Virginia. If you bear your father's name, I dare say it was he whom I met ten years ago in Paris. There is no reason, therefore, why we should not be the best of friends."

She continued to talk as she drew on her gloves, and I saw, as her eyes rested on mine from time to time during this process, that they were the most kindly and humorous eyes in the world. Her face was scarcely wrinkled, but the hair that showed under the small plain hat was evenly and beautifully gray. It was a kind fate indeed that had led me back to the Asolando, and introduced me to the aunt of Wiggins's inamorata.

It may well be believed that I was immediately interested, attentive, absorbed. As she smoothed her gloves, Miss Hollister continued to speak in a low musical voice that was devoid of any of the quavers of age.

"On the day I reached my sixtieth year, Mr. Ames, I decided that my humdrum life must cease. The strictest conventions had guided me from earliest childhood. My experience of life had been limited to those things which women of education and means enjoy—or suffer, as you please to take it. I resolved that for the years that remained to me I should seek to enjoy myself after my own fashion. To sit in the inglenook and knit, with no human companionship but sick kittens, with dull monotony broken only by visits from dutiful clergymen in pursuit of alms for foreign missions, was not for me. Two years ago I chartered a yacht and cruised among the Lesser Antilles, enjoying many adventures. Later I crossed the Andes; and I have just returned from Switzerland, where I accomplished some of the most difficult ascents. I have a clipping bureau engaged to inform me of all rumors of hidden treasure and sunken ships, and I hope that of this something may come, as I retain a marine engineer and corps of divers and can leave at an hour's notice for any likely hunting-ground. This may strike you as the most whimsical self-indulgence. Tell me candidly whether my remarks so affect you."

"If it were not that your benefactions of all kinds have given you noble eminence among American philanthropists, I might be less biased in favor of the sort of thing you describe; but your gifts to orphanages, colleges, hospitals"—

"Ah!" she interrupted; "enough of that. Philanthropy in these times is only selfish