BUDS, in Nellie Grogan's world, come out like morning-glories. It is upon the morning when first she stands behind the counter in the department of kitchen things, let us say, down under a shop that Nellie enters society. Her industrial début implies her social début. That is why, all the evening before, she is an excited arrangement in curl-papers, flushed cheeks, and dancing eyes. Society! Independence! An end of school-days and the maternal suzerainty! Already there looms aureoled in romance the figure of a "steady." Fancy, peering still further into the enchanted future, reveals the Sunday Star one day printing Miss Helen Grogan's picture among portraits of 'The North Cove's Society Belles." A week ago Sadie Fogarty achieved that distinction, and, as Nellie put it, she "ain't such a much."

Observed superficially, the North Cove might seem rather less than a stronghold of society. It has too many tall chimneys, too many gas-tanks, too many tenements like the one where the particular Nellie I select as typical shares a room with her widowed mother. It were a shabby enough folly, though, to contest the Cove's pretensions. "Society," in itself a graceful vocable, adds but one more humbug to the lexicon of inflated terminology that lends consolation to "sales-ladies," "manicure-ladies," and chorus-ladies; " turns bell-boys into "hotel bellmen," and hod-carriers into " plasterers' assistants;" and makes an " engineer" of the furnace-man down cellar. Peculiar, however, are certain ladies and gentlemen in society. Said a North Cove girl to the deaconess at the mission, "How do, Miss Harvey? Been havin' the time o' me life. Been up in the jail, callin' on a gentleman friend o' mine. He was put in

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for stabbin' a lady." At the Thalia, when an uproar had interrupted East Lynne, a voice explained, "It's all over now; there was two ladies fightin'." At the Settlement, the ethical adviser may dauntlessly accuse a man of lying, stealing, or monstrous intemperance, but must never exclaim, "You're no gentleman!" Society avenges that formula by awarding a “slam in the slats." And if, by its insistence upon distinguished appellations, society seems to be lifting itself by its bootstraps, pray note the beneficent results.

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Now, between beginning to be in society and beginning to be of it, there yawns an interval. Six days divide Nellie from that sceptre of her sovereignty over her destiny, the Saturday night pay-envelope. Yet the interval hums with sociability, there in the basement. An' Terry, he says to me, he says" - you know the vein. Indeed, one might marvel that it lacks for our bud the tang of freedom. It does, though, and when comes at last the little envelope, there surges through Nellie's blood a wild exultancy. There's only one thing for it — a ball!

You are not to interpolate an invitation. The beauty of being in and of society is that one lives above invitations. Neither are you to demand a delicately enthusiastic paragraph about Nellie's' ball-dress. Save for a new pink ribbon, set jauntily in her hair, she goes clad as for her Sunday afternoon parading of the Cove's "Peacock Row." You may, however, insert a shudder. For we purpose to send Nellie to Spread Eagle Hall

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why, forsooth, should we not? Often she has heard of it, in glowing reports by other girls; a jolly place it must be bit adventurous, perhaps, but suiting her mood. She sets forth alone, and takes her way beneath the elevated railroad to the corner where a sign in a doorway proclaims, 'Social To-night- Gents 25 cents, Ladies 15." Head high, she ignores the "kidding" idlers who dangle about the entrance; she buys her ticket; she trips down a dirty hall-way, the clamor of Doolan's Orchestra banging in her ears, and a hundred apprehensions hammering in her heart. She is of society now her own mistress, and duly scared.

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Consider it. Upon the walls of the dance-hall she sees posters announcing students' nights, masquerades, a French ball, a pas seul by Little Egypt - frauds, every one, though they augur no good. She sees a roisterous multitude, whose faces tell tales. Pasty faces there are, suggesting the creatures one finds under stones; yes, and here and there a painted face. Worse, the girl sees faces pure, Spread Eagle Hall is not only a haven of sinners, it is also a school and forcing-bed of crime. Ruskin, who wrote of "girls dancing because of their misery," might have written with equal fidelity of girls miserable because of their dancing. But what especially alarms Nellie is the manner of the dancing. Instead of" dancing society," as the phrase goes, yonder merry-makers permit themselves to "spiel," and for spieling there exists no adequate condemnation. Nevertheless, one may try a blow at it, possibly, by intimating that, were it ninefold more bacchanalian and executed for hire and before an audience of three thousand people, aristocrats would clap their hands. The costuming, of course, would require revision. Street clothes violate the canons of taste and decorum established by musical comedy and sanctioned by the applause that drowns disgust in a semblance of glee.

Having brought Nellie hither, for sake of probability, it behooves us for sake of chivalry to snatch her away, which should

scarce be difficult. Look! A churlish, slouching fellow has seized her about the waist and swung her out into the dance.

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Fresh!" she snaps. The youth lets her go; in society," Fresh!" declares a suspension of civilities. It announces “trouble." Perplexed, not guessing why a lass should resent his advances, he blurts sulkily, "Y' ain't sore, are you?" But Nellie has no mind for parleying. She flees, almost prepared to "beat it for home and mother." She has identified Spread Eagle Hall with that highway to perdition which forty blood-and-thunder melodramas have taught her to abhor.

At this point, since the background teems with his kind, and his advent is never untimely, let us bring on the

dance. For his part, I fear, he leans a trifle too genially toward optimism. Nevertheless, he fortifies his contentions by adding, "Mebbe we could butt in at the Captain's." A kind, obliging steady, then - to Nellie, and, for that matter, to us. We pause, however, to elucidate. Among society swains, "wise" is a snug, Anglo-Saxon equivalent for "sophisticated." A "wise guy," in truth, is our Hefty. In yonder throng of spielers, he will distinguish with rare criminological nicety between" guns " and " dips," between "students" and "boiler-makers." He knows the proprietor's court record-can tell how often that worthy has been "on the carpet," and when, and by how long a sojourn each time, he has "squared it" on "the island." He knows the umbrageous methods by which the fellow gets his license renewed in return for umbrageous votes. Moreover, he is "hep or, for sake of elegance, should I not say "jerry"? -to much lore fetched down from the Parnassus of pugilism. Versed in good as well as evil, he knows Nellie, at a glance, and knows what joy awaits her at the Captain's.

Would that you possessed a copy of the Captain's prospectus! It begins in charming phrases: "Captain Riordan's Dancing School and Club was founded by the business men of our city in order that there might be one place where they could take their wives and lady friends in safety and cultivate the polite art of ball-room dancing." Bravo, Captain! Well may you boast the quality of your clientèle, among whom, as you proudly assert, "there are three policemen!" And well may you quote by way of superemphasis such rules as, "No smoking, no intoxicating liquors, and no profane language permitted in the Club," and "No high kicking, separating, or splits allowed."

Nor is Captain Riordan a mere ethical four-flusher." A retired petty officer, he glories in discipline. "First offense, reprimand; second offense, expulsion." His personality extends to the very door.

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There he has posted a gimlet-eyed dame, who sights Hefty and demurs, though presently, seeing Nellie, she softens. "Fifty cents each," she concedes; "but mind you, no bad language, no vulgar dancing!" Fify cents - oh, saints preserve us, what a monstrous bunch of change"! Nevertheless, all are plutocrats on a Saturday evening; preach socialism on Friday. As usage requires, Hefty suffers Nellie to finance her entrance; and it is with a little thrill of pride that the girl surrenders the coin. She worked for it, now it shall work for her. In return for the half-dollar she receives a claim for checking her hat. While admitting to a quasi-public dance, that bit of pasteboard dodges the look of commercialism; for Riordan's club and school exist, extending hospitality to refined outsiders for the better augmentation of profits, but reserving the right to borrow an epigram in favor at the mission, "Your worth is warrant for your welcome." At grand houses one tips the servants. Here one pays for the keeping of hats.

Just within the doorway of the ballroom stands a shaven, priestly-seeming person, with hair well moistened before combing. This is Captain Riordan, who smilingly greets Hefty. "Find you a partner, if you say, or you can ask any lady. We inculcate that in the school.” Then, turning encouragingly to Nellie, “The ladies know they won't ever meet a man here that is n't a gentleman." But Hefty, you may be sure, has eyes only for his protégée. He is about to slip an arm around her, when lo, a nimbler, fiercer lad cuts in ahead. As the pair go blithely two-stepping across the smooth hardmaple floor, Hefty has leisure to reflect upon a theme dear to Dr. Johnson, namely, the vanity of human wishes. His thoughts, however, shape themselves in words somewhat more spirited than those vouchsafed to the author of Rasselas. "Gee!" he gasps, " would n't that sting you?"

Moping here in the doorway, he surveys the room. its Nile green walls, its

lugubrious Welsbach lights, its platform for the orchestra, its blazoned moral precepts. The dancers men in business suits and thick-soled boots, girls in shirtwaists and skirts - he finds eminently genteel. They" dance society "with true elegance, admitting every variety of hold, from the dorsal and long-distance to the cervical and strangle, and clasping hands with that contempt of method which is the soul of art. About their glide there lurks something of the Puritanic. This, and Nellie's defection, may reasonably induce in Hefty a mood like that owned up to by DeQuincey, who described the impression of melancholy afforded by a room full of dancers.

Suddenly the music stops. Each cavalier pilots his lady to her seat, keeping an arm attentively about her waist and prepared dutifully to maintain the posture till the band strikes up again. Thereupon Hefty charges through the crowd, breathing out threatenings and slaughter. Luckily, the disappearance of his rival precludes a "mix-up," but there is fire in his eye as he faces Nellie and blurts, "Say, ain't you the frosty article?" Her ruse has succeeded. The lad's rage is a sort of proposal, the débutante's blush a sort of acceptance. He her steady, she his lady-friend, the two have shipped aboard that pretty, rose-tinted galleon, a shortterm love-affair. Until further notice, the world may take cognizance that Hefty and Nellie are "keeping company." Let other suitors stand aloof! With Hefty she dances the rest of the evening," off " Hefty she consumes raspberry ice-cream soda at the cut-price drug-store during the intermission, and it is Hefty who sees her home, receiving, in all innocence, a good-night kiss.

How easily we have played Providence, thus far! Now comes the rub. It devolves upon conjecture rather than upon knowledge to arrange that, next evening, Mr. Hefty McCafferty shall commit a call. Calls, being rare in the North Cove, elude scientific observation. I think Hefty should present his card, covering

his embarrassment by apologizing for its being a printed instead of a written card -gentlemen, you know, should have their names done into canary-bird curlicues by a professional penman. But how cover the embarrassment of the ladies Grogan? One rented chamber in a tene ment suite makes a sorry enough draw ing-room. Hence I suggest the amiable intervention of Mrs. Donnelly, who de duces affliction through the wall and hastens to proffer the use of her parlor. A moment later, the couple are seated upon Mrs. Donnelly's installment-plan red-plush sofa, next the installment-plan graphophone. To pay them honor come seven small Donnellys, to say nothing of Mrs. Donnelly, Mrs. Grogan, and three neighbors from across the hall. If this be calling, let us make the least of it, though pausing a moment longer to be sure the graphophone is playing. Fancy hints even the tune "The Bird on Nellie's Hat; or, You Don't Know Nellie Like I Do."

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Here we return to terra cognita. No man can doubt that Hefty has seen a great light. He declares (and I quote him textually) that the park bench " has calling skun a mile." So next morning in the basement he and Nellie formulate a "date," the two to present themselves at seven that evening "under the big clock." What more romantic trysting-place? In the jeweler's window, behind the clock, you have seen the announcement of

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genuine imitation diamonds," while from that establishment emanates the thrilling advertisement, "Marry me. Gladys" (or Rosie, or Susie, or Queenie

- a new name each day), “ and I'll buy the ring at Carter's." Meeting there at the wished, the trysted hour, the pair proceed to a near-by park, where they choose a green bench beside the shore of the pretty toy lake. On other benches, all about, sit other mooning couples, each lad with an arm around his lass. Need I say that Hefty's already encircles Nellie?

Ever so gentle is his caress. In fact, it is scarce a caress at all. The arm slips