way produced by the animated street, the changing
November brightness and the crispness of frost which
was in the air. Then he caught sight of a milliner's
pretty assistant carrying a hat box along the side-
walk, and his gaze hung with pleasure upon her trim
and graceful figure in a cheap cloth coat bordered
with imitation ermine. A feeling of benevolence, of
universal good will pervaded his heart; his chest
expanded in a sigh of thankfulness, and it seemed
to him that he asked nothing better than to be alive.
He was in the mood when a man is grateful to God,
charitable to himself and generous to his creditors.

The cab stopped before his door, and while he paid
the man, he gave careful directions to Wilkins about
the removal of his shooting traps. Then he entered
the apartment house, and passing the elevator with
his rapid step, went gayly humming up the staircase.

On the third landing he paused a moment to catch
his breath, and as he laid his hand, the instant after-
ward, on the door of his sitting-room, he became
aware of a faint, familiar, and yet almost forgotten
perfume, which entered his nostrils from the apart-
ment before which he stood. The perfume, distant
as it was, revived in him instantly, with that curious
association between odours and visual memory, a
recollection which might otherwise have slumbered
for years in his brain--and though he had not thought
of Jennie Alta once during the summer and autumn
months, there rose immediately before him now
the memory of her dressing table with the silver box
in which she kept some rare highly scented powder.
Every incident of his acquaintance with her thronged
in a disordered series through his brain; and it was

-368-