VIII

A NECESSARY EVIL.
Julius Caesar; ii.--2.

"Oh, I assure you that my temper has been such for a week that my
family have threatened to have me sent to a nervine asylum," Ethel Mott
observed to Fred Rangely, who was calling on her, ostensibly to inquire
after her health, some trifling indisposition having kept her housed
for a few days. "What with my cold and my vexation at losing things I
wanted to go to, I have been positively unendurable."

"That's your way of looking at it," he responded; "but I hardly fancy
that anybody else found it out. But what has there been to lose, except
the Throgmorton ball?"

"Well, first there was the concert Saturday night."

"Do you care so much about the Symphonies, then? I thought you were the
one girl in Boston who doesn't pretend to care for music."

"Oh, but we have lovely seats this year, and the nicest people all
about us, you know. Thayer Kent and his mother are directly behind us."

"Where he can lean forward and talk to you," interrupted Rangely,
jealously.

"Yes," she said, nodding with a gleam of mischievous laughter in her
dark eyes. "And I do have a nice time at the Symphonies. Besides, I