Exit Betty

patiently, stretching out his long muscular limbs nervously and rubb

d go out in time for him to call her up at her noon hour. He was a very temperamental stenographer and understood the moods and tenses of his most temperamental employer fully. It was all in knowing how to manage him. James was most deferential, and knew when to keep still and not ask questions. This was one of the mor

re heart and an anxious mind. It was being borne in upon him gradually that he was not a shouting success in business so far. The rosy dreams that had floated near all through his days of hard study had one b

it was a line that his father and his grandfather had scorned to touch, and he had grown up with an honest contempt for it. He just could not bring himself to wrest the living from the poor and needy, and plunde

d clear to himself, so that he should say, "No!" strongly and clearly to the corporation. It might do harm to make his reason for declining so plain, but he owed it to his self-respect to give it nevertheless, and he meant to do so. After all, he had no business so

annoyance this morning there ran a most foo

he great sad eyes of the sweetest little bride he had ever seen. He had not been a young man to spend his time over pretty faces, although there were one or two nice girls in whom he was mildly interested. He had even gone so far as to wonder now and then which of them he would b

ation, but his eyes had traveled involuntarily to the front of the church to inspect the handsome forbidding face of the bridegroom, and with instant dissatisfaction he looked back to the girl once more and watched her come up to the altar, speculating as those who love to study humanity are wont to do when they find an interesting subject. How had those two types ever happened to come together? The man's part in it was plain. He was

g what he was doing. He found himself half way up the side aisle to the altar before he came to himself and forced his feet back to where hi

nd a great satisfaction in seeing that she was even more beautiful at close hand than at a distance. He wondered afterward why his mind had laid so much stress upon the fact

g to her continued collapse the ceremony would have to be postponed. The clatter of polite wonder and gossip annoyed him beyond measure, and he was actually cross with his cousin o

had found that her spirit was as wise and beautiful as her face had been. His interest in the matter exceeded all common sense and he was annoyed and impatient with himself more than he cared to own. Never before had a face lured his thoughts like

courteous but stinging phrases with which he had intended to illumine his letter. At last he

and no harm in calling the "forelady" in the cotton blouse depar

ase. Yes, Miss J. Carson. Is that Miss

er Ryan," answer

an

t you 'Miss

Jane. You win

, Jim

out that wedding veil? Been

ous giggle, the full significance of which Ja

din'! You mustn't say thing

y n

Folks mig

you say so. How about seein

y at the usual time. I gotta go now,

ng, da

t she knew just what lordly masculine advice and criticism would lie upon James Ryan's lips if she attempted to tell him about her strange and wonderful guest of the night before. Maybe she was a fool to have trusted a stranger that way. Maybe the girl would turn out to be insane or wrong somehow, and trouble come, but she didn't believe i

to the movies Jane ins

kind of a man

" said Jimm

mean how'd s'e look, or what color is

's the matter of that? I said it and I me

e I know he's a peach. If he wasn't you wouldn't

chan

ed on the sidewalk and indicated his pose. "It was a swell weddin' and the place was full up. He had a big white front an' a clawhammer coat. I

le anxiety, as if she had asked whether

muckymuck, and you often see his aunts' and cousins' names in the paper giving teas and receptions and going places. But he don't seem to go much. I often hear folks as

e rich,

on't have I can't fer the life of me see how he lives. But he certainly don't get it in f

t he have any b

t, too, those rich men have so many ways of crawling out of a thing and making it look nice to the world. Oh, he'll get a fee, of course-twenty-five dollars, perhaps-but what's twenty-five dollars, and like as not never get even the whole of that, or have to wait for it? Why, it wouldn't keep me in his office long! Then there was a girl trying to get hold of the money her own father left her, and her uncle frittered away and pertends it cos

ay, Jimmie, what's the matter of us throwin' a littl

e!" said J

"I'm goin' to think about it. Our fact'ry has

r for yer pains! We'll prob'ly turn them down. Fact

ul, and they were presently lost

oom that was to have been. Jane cut away the bridegroom and pasted the bride's