"If he can be got hold of," Irons remarked, reflectively, "he will carry the whole thing through. They'd believe him up at Feltonville if he told them it was right to walk backward and vote to give their incomes to the temperance cranks." He rose to go as he spoke, unconsciously assuming with the overcoat he put on that air of stiffness and immaculate propriety which he wore always in public. He seldom allowed himself the undignified freedom which marked his intercourse with Mrs. Sampson, and he liked the rest he found in being for a time his vulgar, ill-bred self with no restraints of artificial manner. "Well, good afternoon," he said, extending his large hand, into which she laid hers with a certain faint air of condescension. "I've got to go to a meeting of the committee on the new statue. They've got a new fellow they are trying to push in, a young unlicked cub that Peter Calvin's running. I'll let you know anything that's for our advantage." When he was gone, Mrs. Sampson produced a brush and a dustpan from behind the books on a whatnot and carefully collected the scattered ashes of his cigar. "Vulgar old brute!" she muttered. "To think of my having to clean up after him; his mother was my grandmother's laundress." Then she smiled contemptuously, and added by way of self-consolation,-- "But it will all count in the bill, Al Irons." X THE BITTER PAST. All's Well That Ends Well; v.--3. "Do you see much of Mrs. Herman?" Helen Greyson asked of Edith Fenton, as they sat at luncheon together in the latter's pretty dining-room. "Why, no," was the somewhat hesitating answer. "I really see very little of her. The fact is we have so little common ground to meet on. --You know Arthur says I am dreadfully narrow, and I am sometimes afraid he is right. I have tried to know her, but of course I couldn't take her into society. She wouldn't enjoy it, and she wouldn't feel at home, even if she'd go with me." Helen smiled with mingled amusement and wistfulness. "No," she responded. "I can't exactly fancy Ninitta in society. She'd be quite out of her element. My master in Rome, Flammenti, had a way of saying a thing was like the pope at a dancing-party, and I fancy Ninitta at an afternoon tea would be hardly less out of place." "But she must be very lonely," Edith said, stirring her coffee meditatively. "She used to have a few Italians come to see her; people she met that time she ran away, you remember, and we brought her home, but they don't come now." "Why not?" Edith smiled and raised her eyebrows. "A question of caste, I believe." "Of caste?" echoed Helen. "What do you mean?" "When her son was born," Edith responded, "she told them that the _bambino_ was born a gentleman, and couldn't associate with them." Helen laughed lightly; then her face clouded, and she sighed.