just--said that was his name."

"What's the matter with the prominent one?" Rose wanted to know. "Why
couldn't it have been him?"

Portia admitted that it could, so far as that went, but insisted on an
inherent improbability. A millionaire, a member of one of the oldest
families in the city--a social swell, the brother of that Mrs. Martin
Whitney whose pictures the papers were always publishing on the
slightest excuse--wasn't likely to be found riding in street-cars, in
the first place, and the improbability reached a climax during a furious
storm like that of last night, when, if ever during the year, the real
Rodney Aldrich would be saying, "Home, James," to a liveried chauffeur,
and sinking back luxuriously among the whip-cord cushions of a palatial
limousine.

I hasten to say that these were not Portia's words; all the same, what
Portia did say, formed a basis for Rose's unspoken caricature.

"Millionaires have legs," she said aloud. "I bet they can walk around
like anybody else. However, I don't care who he is, if he'll send back
my books."

Portia went back presently to the shop, and it wasn't long after that
that her mother came down-stairs clad for the street, with her _Modern
Tendencies_ under her arm in a leather portfolio.

It had turned cold overnight, and there was a buffeting gusty wind which
shook the windows and rattled the stiff branches of the trees. Her
mother's valedictory, given with more confidence now that Portia was out