THE HAZARD OF A HUMAN DIE "The tallest trees are most in the power of the wind." Last night at the theatre there were theatricals all over the house. My eyes followed the play on the stage, but my mind was filled with the farce in the next box and with the tragedy in the one opposite. I was with the Ford-Burkes, and, hearing familiar voices, I pulled aside the curtain, and in the next box were the Payson Osbornes, Pet Winterbotham, and Jack Whitehouse. Pet thrust her hand over the railing and whispered, "I'm engaged. Put your hand here and feel the size of my ring. You can get an idea of it through my glove. I'd take it off and show it to you, only I think it would look rather pronounced, don't you?" "Rather," I assented faintly. I glanced beyond her into the fresh blue eyes of young Jack Whitehouse, and I wondered if the alert, manly young fellow, with his untried but inherited capabilities, knew that he had been accepted as a husband because his hair curled and he looked "chappie." "I suppose you have heard the news, haven't you?" she went on. "Nothing in particular. What news?" "Look across the house and you will see." Just entering their box opposite were Louise King and Norris Whitehouse, Jack's uncle. "What do you mean?" I asked, with a wrench at Pet's little hand which made her wince. "It's an engagement. Uncle and nephew engaged the same season. Isn't it rich? Think of Louise King being my aunt. She is only twenty-three." Then they saw us and bowed. I felt faint as my mind adjusted itself to this new arrangement. I levelled my glass at them. Louise, magnificently tall and handsome, looked quite self-contained. She is one of the best-bred girls I know, but it required a stronger imagination than mine to fathom what mysterious change had transformed her from the impulsive, loving creature of Charlie Hardy's story to this serene-eyed woman, who had deliberately elected to marry at the funeral of her own heart. As I looked across at her during that long evening, I felt that it was impertinent to probe her heart with my wonderings and surmises. I knew instinctively just how carefully she was hiding her hurt from all human eyes. I knew how her fierce pride was bearing up under the cruelty of it. I felt how she had rushed from the humiliation one man had brought her to the waiting love of the one who should have been her first choice by the divine right of natural selection. This strong man had loved her for years, but he would never allow her to imperil either his dignity or her own. He was just the man her impulsive, high-strung nature could accept as a refuge, beat against and buffet if need be, then learn to appreciate and cling to.