“Gee whiz, but she’s a peach, isn’t she?” he breathed as he took his place beside Hester, and Michael dropped behind, “but I suppose it’ll all rub off. They say most of those swells aren’t real.” “I think she’s real!” declared Hester. “Her eyes are sweet and her smile is charming. The color on her cheeks wasn’t put on like paint. I just love her. I believe I’d like to know her. She certainly is beautiful, and she doesn’t look a bit spoiled. Did you ever see such eyes?” “They aren’t half as nice as a pair of gray ones I know,” said Will looking meaningfully at them as they were lifted smiling to his. “Will, you mustn’t say such things—on the street—anyway—and Michael just behind—Why, where is Michael? See! He has dropped away behind and is walking slowly. Will, does Michael know Miss Endicott? I never thought before about their names being the same. But he lifted his hat to her—and she simply stared blankly at him as if she had never seen him before.” “The little snob!” said Will indignantly. “I told you they were all artificial. I believe they are some kind of relation or other. Come to think of it I believe old Endicott introduced Michael into our office. Maybe she hasn’t seen him in a long time and has forgotten him.” “No one who had once known Michael could ever forget him,” said Hester with conviction. “No, I suppose that’s so,” sighed Will, looking at her a trifle wistfully. After the incident of this meeting Michael kept more and more aloof from even small entrances into society; and more and more he gave his time to study and to work among the poor. So the winter passed in a round of gaieties, transplanted for a few weeks to Palm Beach, then back again to New York, then to Tuxedo for the summer, and Michael knew of it all, yet had no part any more in it, for now she had cut him out of her life herself, and he might not even cherish her bright smiles and words of the past. She did not wish to know him. It was right, it was just; it was best; but it was agony! Michael’s fresh color grew white that year, and he looked more like the man-angel than ever as he came and went in the alley; old Sally from her doorstep, drawing nearer and nearer to her own end, saw it first, and called daily attention to the spirit-look of Michael as he passed. One evening early in spring, Michael was starting home weary and unusually discouraged. Sam had gone down to the farm with Jim to get ready for the spring work, and find out just how things were going and what was needed from the city. Jim was developing into a tolerably dependable fellow save for his hot temper, and Michael missed them from, the alley work, for the rooms were crowded now every night. True Hester and Will were faithful, but they were so much taken up with one another in these days that he did not like to trouble them with unusual cases, and he had no one with whom to counsel. Several things had been going awry and he was sad.