understand this perfection somewhat soothed and sustained him.

It was quite consistent, therefore, that the embroidered cambric
dress which Mamie Mulrady wore one summer afternoon on the hillside
at Los Gatos, while to the critical feminine eye at once artistic
and expensive, should not seem incongruous to her surroundings or
to herself in the eyes of a general audience. It certainly did not
seem so to one pair of frank, humorous ones that glanced at her
from time to time, as their owner, a young fellow of five-and-
twenty, walked at her side. He was the new editor of the "Rough-
and-Ready Record," and, having been her fellow-passenger from
Sacramento, had already once or twice availed himself of her
father's invitation to call upon them. Mrs. Mulrady had not
discouraged this mild flirtation. Whether she wished to disconcert
Don Caesar for some occult purpose, or whether, like the rest of
her sex, she had an overweening confidence in the unheroic,
unseductive, and purely platonic character of masculine humor, did
not appear.

"When I say I'm sorry you are going to leave us, Miss Mulrady,"
said the young fellow, lightly, "you will comprehend my
unselfishness, since I frankly admit your departure would be a
positive relief to me as an editor and a man. The pressure in the
Poet's Corner of the 'Record' since it was mistakingly discovered
that a person of your name might be induced to seek the 'glade' and
'shade' without being 'afraid,' 'dismayed,' or 'betrayed,' has been
something enormous, and, unfortunately, I am debarred from
rejecting anything, on the just ground that I am myself an
interested admirer."