"And though Miss Elton's emotions do not lie on the surface, I'll warrant they are there," Ellery went on as though letting off pent-up steam. "They are like her voice--like all her motions--neither loud nor faint, but exquisitely modulated. She seems to me like the embodiment of innocence,--not the innocence of ignorance, but the untaintedness of a mind that goes through the world selecting the best, as the bee takes honey and leaves the rest. There's no subject, so far as I can see, on which she is afraid to think; but I can not imagine that any subject would leave a deposit of mire in her mind." "Gee whizz!" scoffed Dick. "How fluent your year of journalism has made you! What a great thing it is to be a serious-minded young man with eye-glasses, engaged, while yet in youth, in molding public opinion through the mighty agent of the press! And Madeline is another of the same kind." "I wish I were of her kind," said Ellery stiffly. "You may poke fun at me as much as you like, Dick, but it's beneath you to jeer at her." "You old duffer, aren't you two the best friends I have in the world? I like the clear and frosty mountain peaks." "How did you find out about Barry?" Ellery asked abruptly. "I do not have to tell you any more than Madeline." Seeing the grim look on Norris' face, Dick went on, "Let's go in and to bed. We seem to rub each other the wrong way to-night. If we don't separate soon we shall be having a French duel." CHAPTER XII AN ENGAGEMENT The gates of the delectable world, it seemed to Lena, opened very slowly, and the mild fragrance and warmth that dribbled out to her through their narrow crack intensified her outer dreariness. Once in a while Mrs. Lenox or Miss Elton did her some little kindness. Occasionally Mr. Percival came to see her, but her shame of her mother and her home made these visits a doubtful pleasure. The sordid monotony of her work oppressed her every morning and depressed her every night. The little money that she earned fell like a snow-flake into the yawning furnace of her desires. Bitter is the fate of her to whom the goods of this world are the final good, and to whom those goods are denied.