"I assure you, though I've never had the pleasure of seeing Miss Phillips, yet, from your description, I admire her quite fervently, and congratulate you from the bottom of my heart." "Miss Phillips!" repeated Jack, with a groan. "What's the matter, old chap?" "It isn't--_her_!" faltered Jack. "What!" "She'll have to wear the willow." "You haven't broken with her--have you?" I asked. "She'll have to forgive and forget, and all that sort of thing. If it was Miss Phillips, I wouldn't be so confoundedly cut up about it." "Why--what is it? who is it? and what do you mean?" Jack looked at me. Then he looked down, and frowned. Then he looked at me again; and then he said, slowly, and with powerful effort: CHAPTER IV. "IT'S--THE--THE WIDOW! IT'S MRS.--FINNIMORE!!!" Had a bombshell burst--but I forbear. That comparison is, I believe, somewhat hackneyed. The reader will therefore be good enough to appropriate the point of it, and understand that the shock of this intelligence was so overpowering, that I was again rendered speechless. "You see," said Jack, after a long and painful silence, "it all originated out of an infernal mistake. Not that I ought to be sorry for it, though. Mrs. Finnimore, of course, is a deuced fine woman. I've been round there ever so long, and seen ever so much of her; and all that sort of thing, you know. Oh, yes," he added, dismally; "I ought to be glad, and, of course, I'm a deuced lucky fellow, and all that; but--" He paused, and an expressive silence followed that "but." "Well, how about the mistake?" I asked. "Why, I'll tell you. It was that confounded party at Doane's. You know what a favorite of mine little Louie Berton is--the best little thing that ever breathed, the prettiest, the--full of fun, too. Well, we're awfully thick, you know; and she chaffed me all the evening about my engagement with Miss Phillips. She had heard all about it, and is crazy to find out whether it's going on yet or not. We had great fun--she chaffing and questioning, and I trying to fight her off. Well; the dancing was going on, and I'd been separated from her for some time, and was trying to find her again, and I saw some one standing in a recess of one of the windows, with a dress that was exactly like Louie's. Her back was turned to me, and the curtains half concealed her. I felt sure that it was Louie. So I sauntered up, and stood for a moment or two behind her. She was looking out of the window; one hand was on the ledge, and the other was by her side, half behind her. I don't know what got into me; but I seized her hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Well, you know, I expected that it would be snatched away at once. I felt immediately an awful horror at my indiscretion, and would have given the world not to have done it. I expected to see Louie's flashing eyes hurling indignant fire at me, and all that. But the hand didn't move from mine at all!"