house or no — so absurd and horridly unbalanced is a young man’s mind when love begins meddling with and readjusting its accustomed mechanism. Long, long were my ears in those first days of my heart’s undoing!

Solemnly brooding on woman’s coldness, fickleness, and general ingratitude, and silently hating every gallant who crowded about her to hold her cup, her fan, her plate, pick up her handkerchief or a bud fallen from her corsage, I could not, however, for the life of me keep my eyes from the cold-blooded little jilt.

She had evidently been out walking before I arrived, for she still wore her coquette garden-hat — the chipstraw affair, with the lilac ribbons tied in a bow under her rounded chin; and a white, thin gown, most ravishing, and all bestrewn