to have the honor of being detailed for that service to-morrow?"

"So Mrs. Roberts says," was the good-humored reply, and then the
merchant took his wife away to their waiting carriage that had drawn up
before the door, leaving Alfred Ried, if the truth must be told, in a
fume.

"Much she knows what she is talking about!" he said, jerking certain
boxes out of their places on the shelves, and then banging them back
again, seeming to suppose that he was by this process putting his
department in order for closing. "Little bit of a dressed-up doll! They
will tear her into ribbons, metaphorically, if not literally, before
this time to-morrow! She thinks, because she is the wife of Evan
Roberts, the great merchant, she can go anywhere and do anything, and
that people will respect her. She has never had anything to do with a
set of fellows who care less than nothing about money and position,
except to be ten times more insolent and outrageous in their conduct
than they would if she had less of it! I shall feel like a born idiot in
presenting this pretty little doll to teach that class! Mr. Durant will
think I have lost what few wits I had! What can possess the woman to
want to try? It is just because she has no conception of what she is
about! But Mr. Roberts must know--I wonder what he means by permitting
it?"

In very much the same state of mind did our young man pilot his new and
unsought-for recruit into the crowded mission rooms of the South End on
the following Sabbath afternoon. She looked not one whit less able to
compete with the terrors which awaited the teacher of the formidable
class.