"Oh splendid," he answered, "especially their eyes." Miss. Ryan appeared to demur to this commendation. "It's generally said by strangers that their figures are unusually handsome. Do you think they are?" Faraday agreed to this too. "The girls in the East," said Miss. Ryan, sitting upright with a creaking sound, and drawing her gloves through one satin-smooth, bejeweled hand, "are very thin, aren't they? Here, I sometimes think"--she raised her eyes to his in deep and somewhat anxious query--"that they are too fat?" Faraday gallantly scouted the idea. He said the California woman was a goddess. For the first time in the interview Miss. Ryan gave a little laugh. "That's what all you Eastern men say," she said. "They're always telling me I'm a goddess. Even the Englishmen say that." "Well," answered Faraday, surprised at his own boldness, "what they say is true." Miss. Ryan silently eyed him for a speculating moment; then, averting her glance, said, pensively: "Perhaps so; but I don't think it's so stylish to be a goddess as it is to be very slim. And then, you know----" Here she suddenly broke off, her eyes fixed upon the crowd of ladies that blocked an opposite doorway in exeunt. "There's mommer. I guess she must be going home, and I suppose I'd better go too, and not keep her waiting." She rose as she spoke, and with a pat of her hand adjusted her glimmering skirts. "Oh, Mr. Faraday," she said, as she peered down at them, "I hope you'll give yourself the pleasure of calling on me. I'm at home almost any afternoon after five, and Tuesday is my day. Come whenever you please. I'll be real glad to see you, and I guess popper'd like to talk to you about things in the East. He's been in Massachusetts too." She held out her large white hand and gave Faraday a vigorous hand-shake. "I'm glad I came here tonight," she said, smiling. "I wasn't quite decided, but I thought I'd better, as I had some things to tell Mrs. Peck for next Sunday's _Trumpet_. If I hadn't come, I wouldn't have met you. You needn't escort me to Madame Delmonti. I'd rather go by myself. I'm not a bit a ceremonious person. Good-by. Be sure and come and see me." She rustled away, exchanged farewells with Madame Delmonti, and, by a movement of her head in his direction, appeared to be speaking of Faraday; then joining a fur-muffled female figure near the doorway, swept like a princess out of the room. For a week after Faraday's meeting with Miss. Genevieve Ryan, he had no time to think of giving himself the pleasure of calling upon that fair and flattering young lady. The position which he had come out from Boston to fill was not an unusually exacting one, but Faraday, who was troubled with a New England conscience, and a certain slowness in adapting himself to new conditions of life, was too engrossed in mastering the duties of his clerkship to think of loitering about the chariot wheels of beauty.