JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT

                    XXI[I

                 MRS. AR GAND

I NOW began to plan how I was to meet my
   young lady on neutral and equal ground, for
meet her I must. When I first mnet her I could
have boldly introduced myself, for all my smutted
face; now Love made me modest. 'When I met
her, I scarcely dared to look into her eyes; I
began to think of the letters of introduction I
had, which I had thrown into my trunk. One
of them was to Mrs. Argand, a lady whom I as-
sumecl to be the same lofty person I had seen
mentioned in the papers as one of the leaders
among the fashionable set, and also as one of the
leaders in all public charitable work. It had,
indeed, occurred to me to associate her vaguely,
first with the private-car episode, and then with
my poor client's landlord, the Argand Estate;
but the "Argand Estate" appeared a wholly im-
personal machine of steel; her reputation in the
newspapers for charity disposed of this idea. In-
                      3