"In the elevator! How?"

"The thing always makes me nervous, you know--I can't abide it, and I'd
much rather any day go up and down the seven flights--but she met me as
I started to walk and persuaded me to come inside. Then she held my hand
until I got quite to the bottom."

"Indeed," said Trent suspiciously; "who was she?"

"Her name is Christina Coles, and she came from Clarke County. I knew
her grandfather."

"Thank Heaven!" breathed Trent, and his voice betrayed his happy
reassurance.

"She's really very pretty--all the Coles were handsome--her great-aunt
was once a famous beauty. Do you remember my speaking of her--Miss Betty
Coles?" He shook his head, and she proceeded with her reminiscence.

"Well, she was said to have received fifty proposals before her
twenty-fifth birthday, but she never married. On her last visit to me,
when she was a very old lady, I asked her why--and her answer was: 'Pure
fastidiousness.'" She had picked up her purple shawl, and the long ivory
knitting needles began to click.

"But I'm more interested in the young lady of the elevator--What is she
like?"

"Not the beauty that Betty was, but still very pretty, with the same