assist you. I hope I may have the further pleasure of seeing you again, some day; but I can hardly expect that—"

"Why not?" she interrupted.

"—unless it should be by chance," he finished, releasing her hand.

"Mr. Winthrope, really, I have enjoyed our accidental tete-a-tete," she pursued. "When we first ran together, I was somewhat angered, as I had a right to be, at your awkwardness; but when I saw you running for my hat, and when I heard you speak, and when you offered to aid me in my distress, all fear left me. I felt that a gentleman was at hand to mollify the grievous circumstance. Now, you know what I think of you."

"Thank you," he replied, bowing, with considerable condescension, for her praiseworthy remarks.

"I would like to prolong our now quite interesting little episode, were it possible," she said, with more earnestness in her feelings than he could believe; "but this horrid night is already sending the shivers through me, and I am beginning to realize that, should we stand here longer, the rain will have, soaked us through and through."

John gasped at this reassuring confidence and interest in himself. He would have asked her, as a matter of continuing his courtesy, to accompany her to her home, or to some convenient point for her to take a taxicab; but recognizing his station in life was not on a plain with hers, he could not conscientiously attempt to ingratiate himself into her favor, let alone asking the pleasure of her company homeward. He felt it would be exceedingly bold and entirely out of place for him, being as he was poor, to make such a dubious request of her. But still she remained continuing the conversation. And the rain still came pouring down.

"I assure you, Miss Jarney," he did say at last, "I have, since I came to know you, never enjoyed anything so monumentally humorous as this affair; and I would have been greatly disappointed on it, and weightily embarrassed over it, had you not have taken my umbrella, even though I had not learned your name, nor ever expected to see you again."

"That is very clever in you," she replied, with the sweetest little chuckle, being amused at the simplicity of his manner and loftiness of his speech. "The eloquence of your deportment cannot be improved on."

"Thank you, Miss Jarney, for your kind opinion," he answered.

Still Edith Jarney stood, on this cold, gloomy, miserable November evening, talking to this young man from the mountains, who was without money, or fame, or glory, or name, except that which his good parents had bestowed upon him—this young man alone in a big city, with a multitude of others in the struggle for existence, and she so rich.

And still she talked on with this unassuming country youth, emboldened to the act by the strange hand of chance that should bring her to it, and by the novelty of the situation, and by some other unfathomable mystery that caused her to see in him something more than usual, continuing to intimate the while that she was loath to forego further indulgence in their very entertaining meeting; and she so rich, and he so poor. But as all happy events in one's life must have an ending, she at length said, while the rain still kept pouring down:

"Mr. Winthrope, I must express my sincere regret that the time and place are inappropriate for a continuance of our very, very pleasant talk on this highly felicitous event, as it has turned out to be."

Again she extended her hand, and still the rain came beating down as before. He took it, and pressed it more firmly, and she permitted him to hold it as he said:

"The pleasure is not all yours, Miss Jarney, I assure you. Were I—were I equal to the occasion, which I can never hope to be, I might ask the pleasure of accompanying you—part way at least—through this soaking night to your home, or to your nearest friends. But I shall not ask it of you."

"Good bye," she replied, with some disappointment, it appeared to him, as he released her hand.

"Good bye," he returned; and they parted.

She turned, and disappeared, like a spectre, into the depths of the grayish shroud of the melancholy night.

He turned a corner, lost his way in the hurrying crowd, and drew up eventually at a restaurant. After refreshing himself, he returned to the street again, and plodded on, with the broken umbrella over him, through the dampage to his cold and dimly lighted chamber—there to sleep, and dream, perhaps, of a fair young face, miles and miles above his station in life.

And the rain beat down above him with the same homely sound, it seemed, as it did in the past, upon the roof above his chamber in his mountain home.

CHAPTER II.

AT THE MANSION ON THE HILL.

In Highland avenue, far removed from the crowded thoroughfares, the congested tenements, the cheap homes of the middle class, the rush and roar of industry—out where the wind and sun (when they combine together to have a sky cleaning and an air purification) first lay hold with brush and broom and water to scour away the smokage of the manufactories of wealth—stands a mansion.

It is a dull gray mansion on a hill, with an outlook to the four winds—over every hill and valley, park, suburb, town and community—embracing everything that a prospect could possibly be endowed with. Standing alone in a small private park, studded with oaks, beech and maple trees, and brightened by a sward faultlessly maintained, with gently sloping hillsides, rockeries, aquariums and flower beds, and winding paths and roads and byways, it impresses one not much unlike that of same landed member of nobility when men were masters of men even with less harshness than now.

It does not resemble an ancient castle. It does not resemble a manor house of England. It resembles nothing at all that ever was in the way of abode of men. It resembles more the newer ideas of builders put into stone and mortar and glass—a conglomeration of the old styles blended into one more modern, more pleasing to the eye, more harmonious with the colors of the air, the trees, the fields and all things around—representing the craft and graft and greed of men of this age.

Without, on this November day, it seemed to be forsaken, cold, damp, dull, forbidding, sombre in every delineation of its outline, rearing through the haze of smoke and fog and rain like a stranded Adamaster in a sea of penury, misery and woe, with the lesser lights of affluence beaming dimly in its neighborhood. But within, there were the warmth of the tropics, the effulgence of the Riviera, the glitter of the Orient, the polish of the court of France in the hey-day of its kings, the laughter of youth, the smile of the aged, the cheer of the domestic, and over all the atmosphere of those brought into the world to conquer among men in the science of business.

This is the home of Hiram Jarney of the firm of Jarney & Lowman, makers of iron and steel. Here lived Miss Edith Jarney, the only child. She was twenty-two, tall, willowy, graceful. She was raised as became a daughter of a man of wealth; but she was not spoiled. She was not a sham, as many such young ladies are. She was not affected. She was level-headed, self-possessed, modest, kind, beautifully unselfish, lovable, very handsome, very noble.

Mrs. Jarney was a buxom woman still, although gray was sprinkled well through her hair. She must have been handsome when young, for yet her cheeks were rosy, with the refining marks of motherhood toning them down to the fading point. She was bouncing in her manner, lofty in her speech, pleasant in her smile, and a little haughty in her bearing, but always cheerful. She had come up from adversity with her husband, climbing the ladder of success side by side with him, adjusting herself to each rung as the dangers of the height increased, till at last she sat, with him, on the top, and scornfully, although not willfully, cast disparaging glances on those below seeking her altitudinous