"No, thank you. Please leave me." His heart was stilled at this fresh evidence of tender solicitude on the part of one, who had been to him all that a mother could be. He contrasted her calm, cheerful ways and unselfishness with his egotism and discontent. Repentant, he prayed to be forgiven, and soon after fell asleep. IX. The next morning his jaded face told plainly of the mental struggle he had undergone. He took up Edna's handkerchief, pressed it to his lips reverentially, as if it had been a shred from the robe of a saint, and then reflected how he should return it to its owner without exciting suspicion or betraying his impertinent freak. "She's a seraph and I'm an idiot!" was his pithy conclusion, "An egregious and presumptuous idiot! If she knew all, what a laughing-stock I should be to her! I will not think of her again, but as one to worship. What am I, or what have I done to merit any favor from her? What could she ever possibly see in me? I must and shall try to forget her. No--I would be very ungrateful to do that. But I must only esteem, respect, and worship her at a distance; and if she prefers that tall, girlish, dancing-Jack, why--no, I have no right to think that. Well, I must return the handkerchief in some way, and then we shall be henceforth as strangers--not exactly strangers--but I will only think of her as an acquaintance." He held to this resolution for at least a week, rigidly schooling his heart to submission; but alas, this resolve met the fate of its kind, for on the eighth day he accidentally saw the disturber of his peace, and away to the four winds of heaven went all humility and self-abnegation. And he met her of all places--in a workshop. Edna happened to be passing the Archimedes Works on her return from the stationer's, when the proprietor, who was looking out of the window of his counting-room, caught a glimpse of her, and going out accosted the young lady, much to her surprise, with a request to walk into his office a moment as he wanted to consult her. She good-naturedly complied, and went into the room, where the old book-keeper bustled about to dust a chair for her, and the junior clerks were rather distracted from their labors by the apparition of such a visitor. "What I wanted was to ask your opinion of a new cart I've been getting, Miss Heath," said George Gildersleeve. "A cart, Mr. Gildersleeve?" repeated Edna. "Yes, a cart de visit." "Oh, a photograph," said Edna. "Yes. Mrs. Gildersleeve's sister, Mrs. Roberts, who lives in Trenton, hasn't got one of mine, and I promised to send her one; so I've been getting some struck off. Now here are the proofs of three different kinds. Snopple got 'em up; and as you're a young lady of taste, the thought struck me, as I saw you go by, that you'd be a capital judge and I want your opinion as to which is the best."