A LIBERAL EDUCATION

"There's ingratitude for you!" Miss Dolly Foster exclaimed suddenly.

"Where!" I asked, rousing myself from meditation.

She pointed to a young man who had just passed where we sat. He
was dressed very smartly, and was walking with a lady attired in
the height of the fashion.

"I made that man," said Dolly, "and now he cuts me dead before
the whole of the Row! It's atrocious. Why, but for me, do you
suppose he'd be at this moment engaged to three thousand a year
and--and the plainest girl in London?"

"Not that," I pleaded; "think of--"

"Well, very plain anyhow. I was quite ready to bow to him.
I almost did."

"In fact you did?"

"I didn't. I declare I didn't."

"Oh, well, you didn't then. It only looked like it."

"I met him," said Miss Dolly, "three years ago. At that time he
was--oh, quite unpresentable. He was everything he shouldn't be.