was but a reversion to the primitive, and he dressed with every satisfaction, delighted to put off the shabby old clothes and no less content with his new appearance as a mirror revealed it to him. The dining room at "Five Gables" was normally a little dark in the daytime, for it looked upon the drive where ancient trees shaded its lofty latticed windows. At night, however, Richard Gessner's fine silver set off the veritable black oak to perfection, and the room had an air of dignity and richness neither artificial nor offensive. When Alban came down to dinner he perceived that a cover had been set for him at the end of a vast table, and that he was expected to take the absent master's place; nor could he forbear to smile at the solemn exercises performed by Fellows the young butler, and two footmen who were to wait upon him. These rascals, whatever they might say in the kitchen afterwards, served him at the table as though he had been an eldest son of the house. If they had expected that the ragged, shabby fellow, who entered the house so stealthily an hour ago, would provide food for their exquisitely delicate sense of humor, they were wofully disappointed. Alban ate his dinner without uttering a single remark. And last night it had been supper in the caves! There must be no charge of inconsistency brought against him if a momentary shudder marked this recollection of an experience. A man may bridge a great gulf in a single instant of time. Alban had no less affection for, no less interest to-night in those pitiful lives than yesterday, but he understood that a flood of fortune had carried him for the time being away from them, and that his desire must be to help but not to regret them. Indeed, he could not resist, nor did he wish to resist a great content in this well-being, which overtook him in so subtle a manner. The sermons of the old days, preached by many a mad fanatic of Union Street, declared that any alliance between the rich and the poor must be false and impossible. Alban believed it to be so. A mere recollection of the shame of poverty could already bring the blood to his cheeks, and yet he would have defended poverty with all the logic of which his clever brain was capable.