Almost imperceptibly she permitted additional favor to come into her manner, and when she said good-night and good-by also, in view of his early start for the city, it was at the foot of the stairway, she casually remarking that she would not come down again.
"My brief visit has not been in vain," he thought.

"I have delayed matters, and that now means a great deal.

She will marry the survivor of this financial gale, and in every man's philosophy the survival of the fittest is always the survival of the _ego_." [Illustration: "THERE NOW, BE RATIONAL," CRIED THE YOUNG GIRL].