steps of the houses where the communities of
young couples lived, and here, evenings, the
inmates of the houses gathered, committing
mild extravagances such as the treating of each
other to ginger ale, or beer, or ice-cream.

Boyce watched these tawdry makeshifts at
sociability with bitterness and loathing. He
wondered how he could have been such a
fool as to bring his exquisite Babette to this
neighborhood. How could he expect that
she would return to him? It was not reason-
able. He ought to go down on his knees
with gratitude that she even condescended to
write him.

Sitting one night till late, -- so late that the
fashionable young wives with their husbands
had retired from the strips of stair carpeting,
-- and raging at the loneliness which ate at
his heart like a cancer, he heard, softly creep-
ing through the windows of the house adjoin-
ing his own, the sound of comfortable mel-
ody.

It breathed upon his ear like a spirit of
consolation, speaking of peace, of love which
needs no reward save its own sweetness, of
aspiration which looks forever beyond the
thing of the hour to find attainment in that