a hurried departure.     

       “Now it seems I am driving you away,” sighed the stranger.     

       “Having been called a ‘vulgar snob,’” retorted the lady with some heat, “I think it about time I went.”      

       “The words were your own,” the stranger reminded her.     

       “Whatever I may have thought,” remarked the indignant dame, “no lady—least of all in the presence of a total stranger—would have called herself—”        The poor dame paused, bewildered. “There is something very curious the matter with me this evening, that I cannot understand,” she explained, “I seem quite unable to avoid insulting myself.”      

       Still surrounded by bewilderment, she wished the stranger good-night, hoping that when next they met she would be more herself. The stranger, hoping so also, opened the door and closed it again behind her.     

       “Tell me,” laughed Miss Devine, who by sheer force of talent was contriving to wring harmony from the reluctant piano, “how did you manage to do it? I should like to know.”      

       “How did I do what?” inquired the stranger.     

       “Contrive to get rid so quickly of those two old frumps?”      

       “How well you play!” observed the stranger. “I knew you had genius for music the moment I saw you.”      

       “How could you tell?”      

       “It is written so clearly in your face.”      

       The girl laughed, well pleased. “You seem to have lost no time in studying my face.”      

       “It is a beautiful and interesting face,” observed the stranger.     

       She swung round sharply on the stool and their eyes met.     

       “You can read faces?”      

       “Yes.”      

 Prev. P 12/22 next