Cousin Mary were hoping to "get up a table" one night very soon; of Mitchellton, where she had lived seven years till September; of the maxixe and the smallness of the house Mary Wing had taken for them; a dozen such un-New simplicities. And then, as she happened to be saying something about the strangeness of the city, "just at first," Charles Garrott exclaimed suddenly, rather pleased:—

"There's a friend of yours, at any rate, Miss Flower—Donald Manford! The last one in the world you'd expect to meet here."

The engineer must have just come in; over bobbing heads, through waving arms, his fine figure and bronzed face had been suddenly glimpsed at the doorway. This young man was another cousin of Mary Wing's; she, indeed, had raised him by hand; and he looked hardly less alien at the Redmantle Club than Miss Angela Flower herself.

To Garrott's astonishment, Miss Flower did not know Donald from Adam.

"Is that Mr. Manford?" she exclaimed, surprised apparently by her cousin's cousin's good looks. "Of course I've known of him for the longest time, but—"

"Why, that's strange—he's like a brother to Mary Wing. But then," said he, reconsidering, "Donald's out of the city half the time, and does nothing but work when he's here."

"Oh! Cousin Mary said she was going to bring him to see us some time—but—"

He enlarged upon the young engineer's industry (trained into him by Miss Wing); explained how he was busier than usual just now in view of his coming trip to Wyoming; mentioned the great Mora dam and cut-off project, on which he expected a commission under Gebhardt himself.

"And your cousin Mary, too," he concluded, in the justest way, "is an awfully busy person, you see."

"Yes, of course, I know! She does work terribly hard, doesn't she?"

After the slightest pause, the girl added: "It's such a pity she has to, don't you think so?"

On which Donald Manford dropped cleanly from Charles's mind, and he inquired with authoritative interest, artfully concealed: "How do you mean, exactly?"

"Well—I don't know—"

She looked at him, laughing a little, as if not certain how far she could say what she meant; but finding his gaze so extremely encouraging, she went on seriously:—

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