THE CRISIS It was the Tuesday before Lent.

The gay season was drawing to a close, for Mrs.Howard and Mrs.Miller, who led the fashionable world of Camden before Ethelyn's introduction to it, were the highest kind of church-women, and while neglecting the weightier matters of the law were strict to bring their tithes of mint, and anise, and cummin.

They were going to wear sackcloth and ashes for forty days and stay at home, unless, as Mrs.Miller said to Ethelyn, they met occasionally in each other's house for a quiet game of whist or euchre.

There could be no harm in that, particularly if they abstained on Fridays, as of course they should.

Mr.Bartow himself could not find fault with so simple a recreation, even if he did try so hard to show what his views were with regard to keeping the Lenten fast.