corked; and he wore diamond cuff buttons. This young man perceived
irresistible excellencies in Nancy. His taste ran to shop-girls; and
here was one that added the voice and manners of his high social
world to the franker charms of her own caste. So, on the following
day, he appeared in the store and made her a serious proposal of
marriage over a box of hem-stitched, grass-bleached Irish linens.
Nancy declined. A brown pompadour ten feet away had been using her
eyes and ears. When the rejected suitor had gone she heaped carboys
of upbraidings and horror upon Nancy's head.

"What a terrible little fool you are! That fellow's a millionaire--he's
a nephew of old Van Skittles himself. And he was talking on the level,
too. Have you gone crazy, Nance?"

"Have I?" said Nancy. "I didn't take him, did I? He isn't a millionaire
so hard that you could notice it, anyhow. His family only allows him
$20,000 a year to spend. The bald-headed fellow was guying him about it
the other night at supper."

The brown pompadour came nearer and narrowed her eyes.

"Say, what do you want?" she inquired, in a voice hoarse for lack of
chewing-gum. "Ain't that enough for you? Do you want to be a Mormon,
and marry Rockefeller and Gladstone Dowie and the King of Spain and
the whole bunch? Ain't $20,000 a year good enough for you?"

Nancy flushed a little under the level gaze of the black, shallow
eyes.

"It wasn't altogether the money, Carrie," she explained. "His friend