Night again, and at the home of Dolly Smith. Dolly Smith and James B. Lawson, alias Elbridge Noral, feel that they know each other now, and the gas jet is turned full on. The room is supplied with furniture of a most costly and gorgeous sort. Lawson, fresh from a home of magnificence, is dazzled by the splendor of Dolly Smith's parlor. "Dolly, you are certainly finely fitted up, finely! I must say that I have not seen better." "It ought to be fine, Mr. Lawson. It is the price that was paid for the virtue of my race. How are matters progressing with you and Erma now?" "Slowly, Dolly, slowly." "Have you gotten an opportunity to speak to her yet?" "Oh, yes! I see her and converse with her nearly every day." "Do you call that progressing slowly?" "Yes, and dangerously slow. You see, my excuse for calling at Mrs. Turner's is to see Franzetta Turner, her daughter, while my reason is to catch a glimpse of Erma. Now, if I keep on going to see Miss Turner as regularly as I have been, why, I will just have to propose marriage to her. There will be no way for me to back out. And I did not bargain for all that. So, you see, I am interested in matters coming to a crisis for a twofold reason. First, my soul is lost to Erma Wysong, and will never be found until I have her love and devotion. Secondly, I am not overanxious to fall into the clutches of Old Maid Franzetta." "How did you happen to get so many conversations with Erma? Explain the situation to me fully, so that I may know the next step for you to take," Dolly Smith said. She now concentrated her soul in her sight and ears. The realization of her life's purpose depended upon the depth of the passion of the man before her. As Lawson's evil genius would have it, he chose this woman of all other people on earth to whom to tell the story of his love. Lawson ran his hands through his gold colored locks of hair, bowed his head as if in meditation, and began his recital, more as a man musing to himself than as one talking to an auditor. Therefore he held nothing back. "Well, Dolly, it was this way. A few days after Erma Wysong went to Mrs. Turner's, I called over there, ostensibly to see Miss Franzetta Turner, but in reality to catch a glimpse of Erma. I spoke to Miss Turner in the midst of our conversation as follows: "'Miss Turner, my barber tells me that your servant girl is a belle in Negro society, and has occasioned about as much ado among her people by becoming a servant girl as your entering a factory to work would do among us.' "'Is that true, Mr. Lawson? If she is a belle, she is a worthy one. I would give a million for her form. It is symmetry itself.' "'You underrate your own charms, and overrate those of your servant,' is the unpardonable lie that escaped from my lips, after sticking to my throat for a century, it seemed.