One of the number stayed with his lips pressed tightly together and a look of determination in his dark eyes, as he leaned against the railing around the office. He had fought his way to that place and kept it through all the jostling and pushing around him. He had heard scores refused and sent away, and, either because his brain was muddled or because he overrated his influence and powers of persuasion, he hoped to get in somewhere, “if it is in the attic,” he said, when he at last stood alone and reached out his hand for the register in which to sign his name. “No room in the attic; no use to register,” the worn-out clerk said, trying to take the book back. But the stranger held it fast and wrote in a round, plain hand, “John Percy, Washington, D. C.” “That’s who I am,” he said, pointing to his name with an assured manner, as if it would at least secure him a cot in the parlor. The clerk glanced at it and shook his head, then called his companion’s attention to it. “Oh, Jack Percy,” the young man said, looking at the stranger, whom he remembered to have seen three or four years before. “I am very sorry, Mr. Percy,” he said, coming forward, “but really, there is not a foot of spare room in the house. We might give you your meals if you are willing to wait for the second table. We have two now, the hotel is so full.” “I’ll take my meals here then and sleep on the beach,” Jack answered, taking up his grip-sack. “There is your mother’s. Why don’t you go there?” the clerk asked, regretting his question when he saw the look on Jack’s face, as he sent his stepmother to a very warm place and added: “She don’t want me.” Nobody wanted him, and he had come so far and was so tired and faint and angry, too, as he sat down outside in a cool angle of the building, where he was shielded from observation and could think. He had received Clarice’s letter, which had been forwarded to him from Denver. Reading between the lines he understood that he was not wanted at the wedding, which she said was to be a quiet affair, not worth his coming so far to see. The Boston Herald, which Mr. Hansford took, told a different story, and so did Elithe’s letter to her mother. Rob, with whom he was very intimate, repeated to him with a good deal of pride an account of the fine doings in Oak City, of which Elithe was to be a part, in a white muslin gown, made in Boston and trimmed with ribbons and lace. Jack listened without any comment, but to himself he said: “I shall go to this wedding.”