asked the suspicious Sarah.

"Now, Sarah, do not be cross with me, will you, if I tell you?" asked Edith, with some hesitancy about revealing what had so recently happened to give her such a wonderful new vision of life.

"Never—never, Edith—unless you say," promised Sarah.

"I met the finest young man this evening, Sarah," began Edith, slowly, blushingly, still toying with Sarah's hair, Sarah still being on her knees before her mistress. "There—I have let it out! Now, don't you tell, Sarah. No, of course, you will not?"

"Since you have forbidden any of the young bloods of your own set coming to see you, I am anxious to know just where you got your 'finest young man,'" said Sarah, sarcastically.

"I found him!"

"Is he rich?" asked Sarah.

"Never thought of that!"

"Where did you find him, Edith?"

"Bumped into him in the streets—now, don't scold me, Sarah!"

"Why, Edith!" exclaimed Sarah, rising, and holding up her hands, and opening wide her prudish eyes. Sarah's sense of the proper fitness of things old-maidenishly would not permit her even to meditate on such a horrible deed.

"Do not be unduly alarmed, Sarah," calmly remarked Edith. "It was an accident—oh, such an extraordinary accident, Sarah, and so ridiculous on my part that I still feel the effects of it on my mirthful nature."

"Tell me all about it, my dear Edith?" said Sarah, now buttoning up the back of Edith's dinner gown.

"If you will not tell—promise?"

"You have my promise, Edith; but you wouldn't keep such a secret from your mother, would you?"

"I do not want to, Sarah; but I am afraid, if I tell her, she will scold me."

"Now, what did you do, Edith?" asked Sarah.

"Stood in the rain the longest time talking to the strange young man."

"Why, Edith!" exclaimed Sarah, for the fifth or sixth time.

"No why about it, Sarah. It was an unavoidable accident. I ran into him, he into me. My hat fell off, rolled into the gutter, and my umbrella was rendered limp in one of its poor wings. Now, could I help that, Sarah?"

"Perhaps not."

"Well, he recovered my hat, held his umbrella over me while I put it on again, gave me his umbrella and he took my crippled one."

"Is that all?"

"We talked some."

"Talked? Good gracious!"

"Yes, talked, Sarah—really talked."

"Why, Edith!"

"Now, Sarah, be sensible, and listen. He was so polite, so courteous—"

"They're all that way," interrupted Sarah, a man hater.

"—but him," returned Edith, not meaning it in the same sense that Sarah did. "I was going to say, Sarah, that I could not resist his good face."

"Who is he?" asked Sarah, coldly.

"John Winthrope!"

"What does he do?"

"Works in my father's office!"

"Lordy!" exploded Sarah at this revelation, for really Sarah was the snob instead of Edith. "And you stopped to talk with him in the street?"

"Sarah, you are mean—real mean—cruel, exasperating. Sarah, I will have nothing more to do with you, if you talk that way any more! I will get a new maid, or have none at all—that I will, Sarah! Now, take your choice!"

This from Edith, who was usually so calm, so even tempered, and so reasonable in all matters. But Sarah had aroused her dormant nature by such a reference to class distinction, that Edith, in her liberal way of looking at the world in general, could not reconcile Sarah's views with justice, if each human being concerned was equally endowed morally, physically and mentally.

"I will say no more, Edith," humbly surrendered the prudent Sarah.

Dinner was announced, and Edith descended to the brilliancy of the great dining room, where her parents were awaiting her arrival to be seated with them. Edith was charming in her changed habiliment. Could John but see her now! But John had no password as yet to this rich home.

"Now, Edith, to the story," said Mrs. Jarney, after they had seated themselves around the sumptuously provided table.

"What is that?" asked Mr. Jarney, looking at his wife, and for the first time getting an inkling of Edith's experiences, then turning his eyes questioningly upon Edith.

"Nothing serious, papa," said Edith, noting that he was surprised over the manner in which her mother had put the question.

"Well, then, dear Edith, go on," said her father, in his usually kind tone.

"Promise, papa, that you will not be hard on me?" pressed Edith.

"As long as you have done no wrong, Edith, I promise," he replied.

Then Edith related her tale, down to the minutest detail, even as to how it affected her afterwards—except that she kept the impression that it left upon her heart as her own inviolable secret.

"Edith," said her father, after she had finished, and after he had pondered a few moments over the possible effect on the young man in the office, and after smiling and laughing heartily, "Edith, it certainly is a peculiar coincidence. I am glad to know the party turned out to be our newest addition to the office force, and not a ruffian."

This ended the general conversation about John Winthrope. None of them considered the event in any other light than if she had had a similar encounter with the ash-man—except Edith. But still they did not cease referring to the matter occasionally for some time, for after all they could not help but marvel on it.

Edith was unusually cheerful after she found her parents were not vexed. She sang and played on the piano, read a few pages in a novel, talked, laughed, went up and down the rooms, wondering, wondering what it was that agitated her so and raised her spirits to such a high tension.

Finally, after what appeared to be an age in passing, she became weary, and went to bed, to sleep, and dream, perhaps, of a fair young man, miles and miles below her station in life.

And the rain beat down upon the roof above her with the same homely sound as it beat down upon the roofs above all mankind that night.

CHAPTER III.

THE OLD JUNK SHOP.

The rusty perspective of a four story building rises in the midst of many similarly nondescript structures, between Wood and Liberty streets, looking out over the cobblestoned wharf skirting the Monongahela river, flowing lazily by.

It was builded in the days when it was a lofty office building: when its three flights of darkened stairs were mounted by leg muscle: in the days when its little windows were barn-doors of undimmed light, and the panes were of minimum size for economy sake: in the days when the steamboat trade was a valuable asset of the river front merchants: in the days when men fought in the merry war of competition, and when life was not so strenuous as it is now: in the days when its name stood prominently among the business blocks in the city directory. But now it has no resemblance to its former self; it makes no impression on the passer-by, unless he be the curious delving into ancient lore; it is silently languishing into the past, waiting for the strong arm of Progress to raze it to the ground for something more imposing in its place.

Here, in the past, were offices on the upper floors devoted to the exclusive use of professional men; while on the ground floor, for years, a merchant held sway with an assortment of merchandise that equaled in variety, if not in quantity, the great department stores of the present.

Where the store was, there is a junk shop now, and it is called The Die. In it may be found, collected together in an heterogeneous mass, a miscellaneous lot of rubbish that even the bearish-like proprietor himself wonders, sometimes, where it all comes from, and whither it all goes. Here may be found the worn out and cast off articles of rivermen: boatmen, wharfmen, raftsmen, and every other class of men who ply their trade in, on, and about the water. Here may be found an indeterminable assortment of wearing apparel, for all ages of men,