tobacco-shop, she laughed and added, "I've just been on the most
ridiculous errand!"

"What was that?"

"To order some cigars for my father. He's been quite ill, poor
man, and he's so particular--but what in the world do _I_ know
about cigars?"

Russell laughed. "Well, what DO you know about 'em? Did you
select by the price?"

"Mercy, no!" she exclaimed, and added, with an afterthought, "Of
course he wrote down the name of the kind he wanted and I gave it
to the shopman. I could never have pronounced it."



CHAPTER X

In her pocket as she spoke her hand rested upon the little sack
of tobacco, which responded accusingly to the touch of her
restless fingers; and she found time to wonder why she was
building up this fiction for Mr. Arthur Russell. His discovery
of Walter's device for whiling away the dull evening had shamed
and distressed her; but she would have suffered no less if almost
any other had been the discoverer. In this gentleman, after
hearing that he was Mildred's Mr. Arthur Russell, Alice felt not
the slightest "personal interest"; and there was yet to develop
in her life such a thing as an interest not personal. At