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 my ire and almost took away my presence of mind—why they even dared ask me if the evening had been an enjoyable one, and hoped to see me there often.' He told us how he wiped the perspiration from his brow, and told himself the confounded impudence and intrusion ought to be swiftly checked, but for the life of him he couldn't think of an effectual way of doing it. We asked him what he finally did. 'I just took it all, and smiled back,' he answered, with a crestfallen air.

"What was his astonishment when we told him he was smiling at the Governor's daughters, and the queens of the social world. We quite enjoyed his discomfort, but he could not reconcile the difference in our ways and the ones he had known.

"Of late he seems to be falling back in his old ways," she went on, her voice sinking lower yet. "I hope your presence will be strength in his weakness"—she sighed deeply, but the expression on her face was one of kindly resignation rather than hopeless grief.

Marrion started; every syllable of that sweet tremulous voice seemed to unnerve him utterly.

"I don't want it to make your days darker, at least"then he added:

"It is better not to be too good to men," and there was in his voice an accent of kindly warning.