Just as I reached the threshold a superb rose, which had been the only ornament of my costume, chanced to fall from my corsage on the marble floor. It lay nearest to Mr. Spence, who started to pick it up. But he hesitated, and the consequent delay was taken advantage of by his rival, who had darted forward at the same moment. Mr. Barr lifted the rose and pressed it to his lips eagerly, twice and thrice. Then, without asking my leave, he put it in his button-hole. It was he too who helped me into my carriage. He bent low over the hand I gave him, while Mr. Spence, still irresolute, bowed from the shadow of the door-way. "May I have the honor of calling upon you?" asked Paul Barr. "Certainly, if you wish. And, Mr. Spence, I shall be very glad to see you also," I cried from the carriage window. IV. I felt next morning a little as if my experience of the previous night were a dream. But as I thought over all that had occurred, what may be called the romantic features seemed to dwindle in distinctness and importance, and I dwelt chiefly on the mental profit I had derived from these new associations. Once more I deplored the existence of the vain and coquettish notions that had led me to construe as devotion the enthusiasm of the clever men who had honored me with an explanation of their original and interesting conceptions. It was clear that I was still not wholly free from flippancy and nonsense. I did not attempt to decide between the merits of the diametrically opposed schools of thought represented by Mr. Spence and Mr. Barr. I was sensible enough to understand that long study and reflection would be requisite to qualify me to take sides intelligently. But yet I had already a distinct preference. I felt that whatever the value of his system, Mr. Spence was thoroughly and grandly in earnest. His whole soul was in the spread and development of his peculiar doctrines. To obtain their recognition he was willing to sacrifice luxury, comfort, and all the pleasures of life. Everything else was a secondary consideration. Already in the course of his thorough investigations he had endured horrors and committed extravagances from which a nature so palpably refined as his must have shrunk with loathing. It was novel and delightful to me to meet a man so completely absorbed in a pursuit which promised no reward beyond the amelioration of society,--a result of which he could hope to live to see only the beginnings. For mere dollars and cents he cared nothing. He had no ambition to grow rich; indeed, it was one of his tenets that no one should retain more than a certain amount of property,--doubtless enough to keep the wolf from the door, and to permit the continuation of scholarship. How much more unselfish and ennobling a life than that of the feverish money-getter, with all his appliances of forge and factory, and export and import! I had found an answer to my yearnings and my unrest in this untiring devotion to abstract truth.