"A peculiar sensation always comes over me," he said musingly, "after I spend several hours uninterruptedly in the society of a woman who is using her mind in any way. I couldn't explain it to you exactly. It's a kind of impression that my own brain has begun to disintegrate, and to--" "Don't be too hard on yourself, Billy." Nancy soothed him sweetly,--Billy was not one of the people to whom she habitually allowed full conversational leeway: "Swear you won't tell Caroline or Betty--or Dick." "I swear." Nancy held out her hand to him. "You're a good boy," she said, "and I appreciate you, which is more than Caroline does, I'm afraid. Run along and see her now--I don't need you any more, and you're probably dying to." Billy bowed over her hand, lingeringly and politely, but once releasing it, he shook his big frame, and straightening up, drew a long deep breath of something very like relief. "With all deference to your delightful sex," he said, "the only society that I'm dying for at the present moment is that of the old family bar-keep." As Billy left her, Nancy turned to her basement window, and stood looking out at the quaint stone court he had to cross in order to reach the high gate that guarded the entrance to the marble worker's establishment, under the shadow of which it was her intention to open her out-of-door tea-room. She watched him dreamily is he made his way among the cinerary urns, the busts and statues and bas-reliefs that were a part of the stock in trade of her incongruous business associate. In her investigation of the various sorts and conditions of restaurants in New York, she characteristically hit upon the garden restaurant, a commonplace in the down-town table d'hôte district, as the ideal setting for her adventure in practical philanthropy, while the ubiquitous tea-room and antique-shop combination gave her the inspiration to stage her own undertaking even more spectacularly. Her enterprise was destined to flourish picturesquely in the open court during the fair months of the year, and in the winter months, or in the event of a bad storm, to be housed under the eaves in the rambling garret of the old brick building, the lower floor of which was given over to traffic in marbles.