"I believe--You're not _crying_! Well, I'll be hanged! Sis, you _are_ a fool!" * * * * * The weather that morning was fine and clear.

James Pearson, standing by the window of his rooms at the boarding house, looking out at the snow-covered roofs sparkling in the sun, was miserable.

When he retired the night before it was with a solemn oath to forget Caroline Warren altogether; to put her and her father and the young cad, her brother, utterly from his mind, never to be thought of again.

As a preliminary step in this direction, he began, the moment his head touched the pillow, to review, for the fiftieth time, the humiliating scene in the library, to think of things he should have said, and--worse than all--to recall, word for word, the things she had said to him.

In this cheerful occupation he passed hours before falling asleep.