contact with them."

He looked at her in wonder. She talked of Josephine as if she were
Josephine's superior, and her expression and accent were such that they
contrived to convey an impression that she had the right to do it. He
grew suddenly angry at her, at himself for listening to her. "I am
sorry," he said stiffly, and took up a pen to indicate that he wished
her to go.

He rather expected that she would be alarmed. But if she was, she wholly
concealed it. She smiled slightly and moved toward the door. Looking
after her, he relented. She seemed so young--was so young--and was
evidently poor. He said:

"It's all right to be proud, Miss Hallowell. But there is such a thing
as supersensitiveness. You are earning your living. If you'll pardon me
for thrusting advice upon you, I think you've made a mistake. I'm sure
Miss Burroughs meant well. If you had been less sensitive you'd soon
have realized it."

"She patronized me," replied the girl, not angrily, but with amusement.
"It was all I could do not to laugh in her face. The idea of a woman who
probably couldn't make five dollars a week fancying she was the superior
of any girl who makes her own living, no matter how poor a living it
is."

Norman laughed. It had often appealed to his own sense of humor, the
delusion that the tower one happened to be standing upon was part of
one's own stature. But he said: "You're a very foolish young person.
You'll not get far in the world if you keep to that road. It winds