“I shall want to talk with you, to see what I can do to help you in your work. Please come again soon. I ought not to have brought you here this evening, only to see me cry like a baby. But—I had done you such injustice in my mind about that seven dollars, and then to find that—Oh!” Miss De Voe showed signs of a recurring break-down, but mastered herself. “Good-evening.” Peter gone, Miss De Voe had another “good” cry—which is a feminine phrase, quite incomprehensible to men—and, going to her room, bathed her eyes. Then she sat before her boudoir fire, thinking. Finally she rose. In leaving the fire, she remarked aloud to it: “Yes. He shall have Dorothy, if I can do it.” So Dorothy became a pretty regular addition to the informal meals, exhibitions and concerts. Peter was once more taken to the opera, but Dorothy and Miss De Voe formed with him the party in the box on such nights. Miss De Voe took him to call on Mrs. Odgen, and sang his praises to both parents. She even went so far as to say frankly to them what was in her mind. Mr. Ogden said, “Those who know him speak very well of him. I heard ‘Van’ Pell praise him highly at Newport last summer. Said all the politicians thought of him as a rising man.” “He seems a nice steady fellow,” said the mamma. “I don’t suppose he has much practice?” “Oh, don’t think of the money,” said Miss De Voe. “What is that compared to getting a really fine man whom one can truly love?” “Still, money is an essential,” said the papa. “Yes. But you both know what I intend to do for Dorothy and Minna. They need not think of money. If he and Dorothy only will care for each other!” Peter and Dorothy did like each other. Dorothy was very pretty, and had all the qualities which make a girl a strong magnet to men. Peter could not help liking her. As for Dorothy, she was like other women. She enjoyed the talking, joking, “good-time” men in society, and chatted and danced with them with relish. But like other women, when she thought of marriage, she did not find these gingerbread ornamentations so attractive. The average woman loves a man, aside from his love for her, for his physical strength, and his stiff truth-telling. The first is attractive to her because she has it not. Far be it from man to say why the second attracts. So Dorothy liked Peter. She admired many qualities in him which she would not have tolerated in other men. It is true that she laughed at him, too, for many things, but it was the laughter of that peculiar nature which implies admiration and approval, rather than the lower feelings. When the spring separation came, Miss De Voe was really quite hopeful. “I think things have gone very well. Now, Mr. Stirling has promised to spend a week with me at Newport. I shall have Dorothy there at the same time,” she told Mrs. Ogden. Lispenard, who was present, laughed as usual. “So you are tired of your new plaything already?” “What do you mean?”