walk a mile in the chill and wet. She had the reputation of
absent-mindedness. Let us hope that her wits were off upon an
excursion when we got into the carriage and drove away, leaving Mrs.
C---- at the gate.

Glancing back, uneasily, I saw her raise an umbrella and set out upon
her cheerless promenade directly in our wake, and I made a desperate
essay at redressing the wrong.

"It is a pity Mrs. C---- must go out this afternoon," I said,
shiveringly. "She will have a damp walk."

"Yes," assented my companion, readily. "That is the worst of being in
this vicinity. There is no street railway within half a mile."

She went no further. I could go no further. The carriage was hers--not
mine.

Mrs. C---- 's brother did not call on me, nor did she ever again. The
latter circumstance might not have excited surprise, had she not
treated me with marked coldness when I met her casually at the house
of a friend. In the busy whirl of an active life, I should have
forgotten this circumstance, or set it down to my own imagination, had
not her brother's paper contained, a month or so later, an attack upon
myself that amazed me by what I thought was causeless acrimony. Even
when I found myself described as rich, haughty and heartless,
"consorting with people who could pay visits to me in coaches with
monograms upon the doors, and turning the cold shoulder to those who
came on foot,"--I did not associate the diatribe with my visit to the
writer's relative. Five years afterward, the truth was made known to