"What were you crying about?" interrupted the uninvited guest. "Nothing, I tell you!" she repeated, the tears not ceasing to gather in her eyes. "I wasn't." "I want to know what it was," he insisted. "Didn't the fools ask you to dance! Ah! You needn't tell me. That's it. I've been here, watching, for the last three dances and you weren't in sight till you came to the window. Well, what do you care about that for!" "I don't," she answered. "I don't!" Then suddenly, without being able to prevent it, she sobbed. "No," he said, gently, "I see you don't. And you let yourself be a fool because there are a lot of fools in there." She gave way, all at once, to a gust of sorrow and bitterness; she bent far over and caught his hand and laid it against her wet cheek. "Oh, Joe," she whispered, brokenly, "I think we have such hard lives, you and I! It doesn't seem right--while we're so young! Why can't we be like the others? Why can't we have some of the fun?" He withdrew his hand, with the embarrassment and shame he would have felt had she been a boy. "Get out!" he said, feebly. She did not seem to notice, but, still stooping, rested her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. "I try so hard to have some fun, to be like the rest--and it's always a mistake, always, always, always!" She rocked herself slightly from side to side. "I'm a fool, it's the truth, or I wouldn't have come to-night. I want to be attractive--I want to be in things. I want to laugh as they do--" "To laugh, just to laugh, and not because there's something funny?" "Yes, I do, I do! And to know how to dress and to wear my hair--there must be some place where you can learn those things. I've never had any one to show me! It's only lately I've cared, but I'm seventeen, Joe--" She faltered, came to a stop, and her whole body was shaken with sobs. "I hate myself so for crying--for everything!" Just then a colored waiter, smiling graciously, came out upon the porch, bearing a tray of salad, hot oysters, and coffee. At his approach, Joe had fallen prone on the floor in the shadow. Ariel shook her head to the proffer of refreshments. "I don't want any," she murmured. The waiter turned away in pity and was reentering the window when a passionate whisper fell upon his ear as well as upon Ariel's. _"Take it!"_ "Ma'am?" said the waiter. "I've changed my mind," she replied quickly. The waiter, his elation restored, gave of his viands with the [v]superfluous bounty loved by his race when distributing the product of the wealthy. When he had gone, "Give me everything that's hot," said Joe. "You can keep the salad." "I couldn't eat it or anything else," she answered, thrusting the plate between the palms.