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156 o'clock to-night. Will you go over and see Elsie to-morrow morning for me, Nan?"

I got up and walked toward the door. "I don't know that you care for my opinion, Burr," I replied, "but you might as well know that I think you're making a big mistake about Elsie—and a big failure of your life, too, so far!" I added, and opened the door quickly and went out.

Poor little unsuspecting Elsie! All the afternoon, as I turned and looked at my clock I wondered if she knew yet, or yet, or yet. Elsie had never had any bitter experiences of any sort, out of which most of us build our fortresses, in which we hide in times of sorrow or distress. Pride, dignity, reserve had never disturbed her in the expressions of her love for Burr. She wouldn't know how to meet such a catastrophe as this. I knew Elsie. She would receive Burr's announcement, surprised at first, uncomprehending, like a child who expects a caress and receives a blow, and then, suddenly conscious of the stinging hurt, abandon herself utterly to her pain.

The afternoon seemed interminable. Would Burr never come back? The sound of every automobile that I heard turn the corner went through me with a sharp sensation of pain. And yet, as anxiously as I waited, every automobile that