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"Don't you hear them, Miss?" he asked.

And indeed, at that moment, the yelping of the young street wolves of Manhattan could plainly be heard. Leslie placed her hands over her ears and fled incontinently up the broad stairs, disdaining the services of the man at the lift, who rose expectantly as she started past him. On reaching the first landing, she met Roy Pallister—little Pallister, she always thought of him, and noting the consternation on his countenance, she could not refrain from bursting into laughter.

"Why, Mr. Pallister," she cried, "you look as if you had been shot out of a cannon!"

In a moment Pallister's look of worriment changed to one of temporary happiness. He was an undersized little fellow, doing the duties of his insignificant career with a gentle manner. He was her father's household secretary, amanuensis, a paid servant, it is true; but critics of the Wilkinson household always maintained two things: first, that there was only one gentlewoman there—Leslie; and only one gentleman—Pallister. Leslie liked him, yet she could not eradicate from the humorous part of her nature the fact that Pallister was ever like a shuttlecock, dancing his dignified but harried attendance now upon Peter V. and then upon another member of the household, whose demands were even more exacting.