to me. I'd take my passage straight off--one would raise the money
somehow--if it wasn't for--There! It's out. A MAN has come and upset
the apple-cart.'

Mrs Gildea gave a funny little laugh. The letter answered her thought.

'"Oh, of course!" I can hear you sneer. "Just another of Biddy's
emotional interests--bound to fizzle out before very long." But this
is a good deal more than an emotional interest, and I don't think it
will fizzle out so quickly. For one thing, THIS man is quite different
from all the other men I've ever been interested in. The first moment I
saw him, I had the queerest sort of ARRESTED sensation. He's told me
since, that he felt exactly the same about me. Kind of lived before--
"WHEN I WAS A KING IN BABYLON AND YOU WERE A CHRISTIAN SLAVE" idea.
Though I'm quite certain that if I ever was a slave it must have been a
Pagan and not a Christian one. Joan, the experience was thrilling,
positively electrifying--Glamour--personal magnetism. . . . You
couldn't possibly understand unless you knew HIM. Descriptions are so
hopeless. I'll leave him to your imagination.

By the way, Molly annoyed me horribly the other day. "You know, dear,"
she had the audacity to remark, "he's not of OUR class, and if you
married him, you'd have to give up US! For could you suppose," she went
on to say, "that Chris and Mama--to say nothing of Aunt Eliza--would
tolerate an adventurer who tells tall stories about buried treasure and
native rebellions and expects one to be amused!"

OUR CLASS! Oh, how I detest the label! And that unspeakably dreadful
idea of social sheep and goats--and the unfathomable abyss between
Suburbia and Belgravia! Though I frankly own that to me Suburbia