"Next dance, did you say? Why I reckon, only it's Mr. Thayer's, but you," turning to Jack, " will of course excuse me ? " Without waiting for an answer she goes in, leaving Jack one of the most dejected of mortals, walking up and down the piazza, and, like ■ Lord Chumley, swearing at the moon, woman's inconsistency etc., and muttering to himself. " What a fool that Merryman is. Why even I am worth three of him; what a girl like Mary finds in him to admire I can't see. However, ' de gustibus mon est disputandum.' He 5 was an awful muff at the University j ; too, so I hear. There is no good, I Reckon, as Mary would say trying to £ argue this case ( Jack is a lawyer) %irls always were enigmas to me." | He throws himself into a chair at I the end of the balcony and gives up v | to the demon of jealousy. Occasion , ally such words as " Ilound," | "Chump" "Conceited puppy," and ; finally a big energetic "—" as ho ' tosses his cigar into the air and a i gain begins his aimless walking. presently there is a rustle of skirts ifcehind him and as he turns sudden ly discovers Maryland ! | "How long have you been here?" ie asks anxiously, thinking of his solilioquy, which he fancied only the "luoon had heard. "I did not arrive till the last ■word, and then I was going away .but you saw me." "Beg pardon, but may I inquire -why you came out here after me ? " The last was a slip; he had not meant to say" that'; she never would forgive him. "I come after you I "to a horri fled- voice;" what a, conceited per • - son you are. I had. no idea you. - wero here." What an awful fib, thinks Mary yet she is obliged to j yune dowo to look *t thfl Sra&k 'a

mooft-to-MMly I don't know my-' eelt.. I reckon it must have liceu to find some one," Well, thinks Mary land if lie were anything but n Yan kee he certainly would understand. "Should you like to know for whom I was looking ?" she asks 'do-, murely. 