waiting for me when I reached the hotel. It was quite a thick
night, and I almost ran into a couple at a corner of our quieter
street when I had got to it out of Broadway. They seemed to be
standing and looking about, and when the man said, "He must have
thought we took the first turn," and the woman, "Yes, that must have
been the way," I recognised my estrays.

I thought I would not discover myself to them, but follow on, and
surprise them by arriving at our steps at the same moment they did,
and I prepared myself to hurry after them. But they seemed in no
hurry, and I had even some difficulty in accommodating my pace to
the slowness of theirs.

"Won't you take my arm, Miss Gage?" he asked as they moved on.

"It's so VERY dark," she answered, and I knew she had taken it. "I
can hardly see a step, and poor Mr. March with his glasses--I don't
know what he'll do."

"Oh, he only uses them to read with; he can see as well as we can in
the dark."

"He's very young in his feelings," said the girl; "he puts me in
mind of my own father."

"He's very young in his thoughts," said Kendricks; "and that's much
more to the purpose for a magazine editor. There are very few men
of his age who keep in touch with the times as he does."

"Still, Mrs. March seems a good deal younger, don't you think? I