"Once or twice."

"He's looking well, isn't he?"

"Yes, confound him! His handsome features have been my ruin."

She could smile at that inverted compliment. But Dyckman began
to think very hard. He was suddenly confronted with one of
the conundrums in duty which life incessantly propounds--life that
squats at all the crossroads with a sphinxic riddle for every
wayfarer.




CHAPTER III

Kedzie--to say it again--did not know enough about New York or
the world to recognize Mrs. Cheever and Mr. Dyckman when she glanced
at them and glanced away. They did not at all come up to Kedzie's
idea or ideal of what swells should be, and she had not even grown
up enough to study the society news that makes such thrilling reading
to those who thrill to that sort of thing. The society notes in
the town paper in Kedzie's town (Nimrim, Missouri) consisted of
bombastic chronicles of church sociables or lists of those present
at surprise-parties.

This girl's home was one of the cheapest in that cheap town. Her
people not only were poor, but lived more poorly than they had to.
They had, in consequence, a little reserve of funds, which they