Miss T. (aside.) Plain Miss! He is very literal.

MR. S. I sincerely regret having wrenched away your parasol. I see it lying there in the mud like a wilted tulip. It must have been very inadequate as a preserver from the elements, at any rate. If I could only make amends-if I might offer you a share of my umbrella.

MISS T. I would die first! I would stand in this rain and melt by degrees, rather than accept such a situation. MR. S. Who asked you to accept a situation? I hope my umbrella has no suggestions of an intelligence office about it?

MISS T. If you will permit the rudeness, I should say not, while it has its present means of support.

MR. S. Meaning me. (Aside.). She is deprecating the strength of my intellect. And yet despite her manner – nay, because of it, there is something quite fascinating about her. I admire that dignified movement of the eyebrows, like arcs of an eclipsing moon seen through smoked glass. (Aloud.) Perhaps I have been not quite au fait in the expression of my desire to be of service to you-allow me to offer you all my umbrella. I shall not mind the rain. And there are two well-defined rills meandering down your cheeks.

MISS T. Rills!-they may become oceans before I would accept the protection of the personal property of any manoceans, sir, oceans!

MR. S. (testily.) Stick to facts, if you please, as we are already sticking here in the mud. Oceans, indeed! Those rills may become rivers, but oceans, never!-unless you should prove to be Lot's wife, after her retrograde glance.

MISS T. (aside.) Lot's wife!-do I look so old as that? (Aloud.) I beseech you not to add to your speech any further evidences of innate brutality.

MR. S. Brutality! You employ strong terms. I am but endeavoring to be polite.

MISS T. If your idea of politeness consists in calling unprotected females Lot's wives, I should say that it is high time some one had written a new book of etiquette and given me the privilege to subscribe for the first number.

MR. S. (aside.) How piquant! This woman is that rare

article, a feminine wit. (Aloud.) My dear lady, I merely meant to offer an umbrella and not an insult-unless the one is so shabby that the offer of it partakes of the nature of the other. I have irrecoverably spoiled the little silken awning with which you canopied your head, and I would repair the damages-not of the parasol, that is past mending, is irrecoverable, uncoverable-but of my feelings for causing the accident; and I would offer what amends I may.

MISS T. (considerably softened.) You are certainly generous; and I must decline the proffered loan. I accept no favors except from my own sex-I know what men are.

MR S. (aside.) How sage her education must be. (Aloud.) But you are standing in the rain, dear lady.

MISS T. (aside.) He calls me "dear lady." How oddly it sounds. No one has called me dear" since Algy's time. (Aloud.) I am standing in the rain, sir-dear sir-because you will not step aside and allow me to pass by. You are in my path.

MR. S. (moving aside.) A thousand pardons! (Miss Truman prepares to go on.) Must I see you go through the rain? MISS T. Certainly not; close your eyes, and the hardship will be overcome.

MR. S. (aside.) What sparkling repartee! (Aloud.) Besides, your bonnet will be spoiled.

MISS T. (shrieking, and running under the umbrella.) My bonnet! It came from the milliner's only this morning, and I felt that I must go out for a promenade as soon as I tried it on. And to think that this shower should spitefully come up! I shall accept of the protection afforded by your umbrella only so long as it takes me

MR. S. To reach your home?

MISS T. Only so long as it takes me to tie my handkerchief over my bonnet (taking out her handkerchief and proceeding to shroud her head-gear).

MR. S. (aside.) I have not seen a woman do that since Cissy used thus to protect her finery from the elements. (Aloud.) Lady, I am really and truly going your way.

Miss T. (her bonnet covered with her handkerchief.) But I am not so sure of that; you don't know which way I am going to take.

MR. S. (aside.) Positively an acute mind. (Aloud.) You are going the right way. (Aside.) That's a guess; she may take the left.

MISS T. (aside, tremulously.) I have been abrupt; such deference has not been shown me since Algy's time. (Aloud, sadly.) I trust, sir, that I am going the right way. I am a harmless enough creature, who has few in the world to care for, and (heatedly) who firmly believes in the perfidy of your sex, having good reason to so believe.

MR. S. What a striking coincidence! I, too, am a lonely sort of fellow who has few in the world to care for him and who--ah-has a concentrated faith in the unreliability of women, and has every reason for exalting that faith into a mania. There is now one other good reason why you should allow me the honor of escorting you to the end of your destination.

MISS T. (aside.) Algy could not have been more persistent. (Aloud.) And may I ask what may that other good reason be, sir?

MR. S. That misery loves company.

MISS T. (running from under the umbrella.) Sir?

MR. S. (shocked.) Forgive me; I meant nothing-upon my honor, I did not.

MISS T. A man's honor! You likened me unto misery, sir-misery!

MR. S. Never! Your disbelief of men and mine of women caused me to see the compatibility of your remaining in my company until I should place you in some permanent place of shelter.

MISS T. Oh! (Comes under the umbrella; aside.) His mind is peculiarly like Algy's, and so masterful. (She takes the handkerchief from her bonnet, and turning her face away, wipes her eyes.)

MR. S. (aside.) Am I brutal enough to cause a woman's tears? It is like Cissy-the way she dabs those briny drops

away.

MISS T. (recovering.) Pardon this emotion, sir; I know not why I should be so foolish, and in the presence of a stranger, too. But memory has its authority with us

women.

MR. S. And with us men.

MISS T. (smiling scornfully.) Men have memory?

MR. S. (sententiously.) As lasting memories as women. MISS T. (excitedly.) Prove it! prove it! I know not why I speak thus familiarly, as I despise men individually and collectively. But you have made an assertion which I have ever combatted, and I am constrained to beg you to prove to me that memory has any meaning to a man. I can strengthen my argument by still further throwing aside reserve and imparting to you a cause for my distaste for the society of gentlemen, by saying that my memory of the perfidy of one man has well nigh made me loathe your sex, That is memory for you!

MR. S. I will be equally unconventional and tell you that remembrance of the unreliability of one woman has given me doubt of every other.

MISS T. (aside.) What a grasp he has on his subject. (Aloud.) But does your memory take you back past the slight you may have received?

MR. S. It does. I see in all the glory of our first acquaintance the one who injured me, maidenly, sweet and lovable. Can you prove so much, and after many years?

MISS T. More-and perhaps as many years have passed since the event as in your case. I see the man who ruined my belief in the world, and yet the memory of whom has kept my heart young while passing years have flung their shadows on my face-I see him as I loved him.

MR. S. (aside.) She is as innocent as Cissy used to be. (Aloud.) I see not only the time when I adored one woman, but I also look into the present when my love for her is as earnest as is my hatred for her sex because of her unreliability. There's memory for you!

MISS T. (aside.) What strength of devotion in a man; I would never have believed it. If Algy had only possessed a tithe of it. (Aload.) I will be equally candid and unsophisticated, sir, and declare to you that not only do I think kindly of him who ruined my faith in humanity, but also that I-I—

MR. S. You hesitate; you would say you still love him? MISS T. (weeping.) I shall love him until my heart has

grown cold in death. I may seem a weak woman in own. ing so much-and he was not true to me, he was not true! MR. S. Nor was the woman of my choice true to me. For her sake I have remained a bachelor all my life.

MISS T. (wiping her eyes and frowning.) Do you suppose that for any one's but his sake I am a spinster? A man can be so cruel, and accuse a woman so unworthily.

MR. S. As unworthily as a woman can deceive a man. Suppose a lady engaged to marry a gentleman; and suppose that lady at a ball dancing nearly the whole evening with a stranger with whom her fiancé is not acquainted?

MISS T. (her hand over her heart; aside.) Heaven! It is what I did, and which made Algy so angry. (Aloud.) And suppose a lady should meet her sister's husband just come from abroad, and not discover his identity to her fiancè, simply for the sake of a little jesting? That! for a man's belief in her he professes to love!

MR. S. (aside.) Merciful powers! it was what Cissy did, and which I did not find out until it was too late to rectify anything. (Aloud, savagely.) I should say that such a man must be a long-eared brute.

MISS T. No, only a man

MR. S. A brute, I tell you; I ought to know.

Miss T. I insist that he was only a man; a man who was not gentle to her he loved, and who did not believe in her against suspicious appearances. As for the lady, she was as silly as it is possible for a woman to be-and I ought to know how silly that is.

MR. S. I cannot call her silly; she may have lacked discretion, but silly-no! a cheerful, loving creature whose own purity of intention blinded her to the miserable suspicion of others.

Miss Truman picks at her handkerchief. A piano plays “The Girl I Left Behind Me."

MR. S. Somebody in one of these houses is playing a tune peculiarly applicable to our present conversation.

MISS T. (listening.) "The Girl I Left Behind Me." (They both listen to the music.)

MR. S. Ah, if for one moment I might see the girl I loved and left behind me!