The age-herald., 1898-10-16

'1 don't know what's come over MT. Eos ter" said Mabel.
 And I don't know what's come over him. said her married sister, Miriam. Ma bel, tell you what"
 .'What?"
 The girl looked up anxiously as the young matron suddenly paused seeming to hesi- tate to say what she had in her mind
 Well, hardly like to say it to you, but now don't you think yourself he has been very-to say the least of it-very irregular this last year or SOL
 Year or so? He seems to have changed entirely in the last three years. Haven't just said it?"
 "Then, If he isn't going to be steady. don't you think you'd better have less to do with him, even if you're not actually engaged? You might get so attached, you know, that it would be harder later on. Don't you seer"
 "Yes, I see what you mean. But the young gentleman has never given me any excuse to meddle in his private affairs He is nothing to me-"
 The words merely as words, were indif- ferent enough, but they were spoken with voice that came as near to being a wall as anything not a vail could be.
 "Oh, now, my dear little sister," said the older woman, 'I didn't mean to hurt you. And-and perhaps it isn't very serious. don't believe MT. Foster can really be a dissipated-I mean, a very dissipated young man. Will you let me manage this for you?'
 What Is there to manager"
 Well, if I take a hand, you won't think me interfering? Can't you trust to my dis cretion?"
 The fortunate or unfortunate subject of this SistarlV talk yya far IJa Thomas Foster, a highly respected young lawyer of moderate income, was at that very moment sitting solitary in his own room in his boarding house on the next block. It was evening, and Foster was waiting for the sound of the dinner bell, debating with himself whether he should or should not obey its summons. His head felt verp uncomfortable and had felt so all day. The effect of this uncomfortable feel Ing had been to provoke the senior partners of the firm to stare at him over their spec tacles and wonder what had taken posses sion of him that he should begin to forget and to blunder at this stage, the sixth year Of his promising career. The cause of it all was, briefly, splendid time the night be- fore.
 From debating whether he would or would not go down to dinner, Foster easily passed to wondering how he could nave been such an ass. He alternated be- tween calling himself ass and ejaculat- ing, Made regular monkey of myself"
 No use swearing off," he solioquized. That would be all right if it were every day, or every week. But the fit won't come back now for six months, when shall have forgotten all about this beastly head and about meeting Mabel and her sister. Ughi Great Scott what an ass I have been!"
 The bell soon began its obstreperous "clang-clahg," and Foster in a few seconds settled the question he had been debating Tor half an hour. He settled it in the af- firmative. As several of his fellow boarders had seen him come in, he thought 1t would be better to go down and take his chances or escaping remark on his washed-out ap- pearance than to face the certainty of re- marx and discussion on the score of making no appearance at all. =he smiled and bowed in the regulat tion