bitterly. "I have made a little scandal, that is
all. My father told me to-day to go to the
devil, if I chose, and my mother gave me five
hundred dollars to help me along on the way.
If you wish to know, here is the explanation."

And he pulled from his pocket six perfumed
and carefully folded notes, and threw them into
her lap.

"Do you wish me to read them?" she asked,
with growing surprise.

"Certainly. Why not?"

She hastily opened one note after the other,
and read.

"But, Ralph," she cried, springing up from
her seat, while her eyes flamed with indignation,
"what does this mean? What have you
done?"

"I didn't think it needed any explanation,"
replied he, with feigned indifference. "I
proposed to them all, and, you see, they all
accepted me. I received all these letters to-day.
I only wished to know whether the whole world
regarded me as such a worthless scamp as you
told me I was."