Barriers Burned Away

his life in the great city had often been very lonely. He expected, as a matter of course, to be treated as an equal at the artistic entertainment in which he was to participate. In his business relations at the store he had taken a subordinate position and made up his mind to the logical consequences. But now that he was invited to a private house, and would appear there possessing all the qualities of a gentleman, he surely would be treated as one. “Is not this Chicago, whose citizens were nearly all poor a few years ago?” he thought; “and surely, if what Miss Ludolph says is true, I have advantages in my taste over most poor young men.” Moreover, it was his ideal of an entertainment, where art and music should take the place of the coarser pleasures of eating, drinking, and dancing. Chief of all, Christine would be there, and even he in his blindness became a little uneasy and self-conscious as he realized how this thought towered above the others.

She had given him a list of the things he was to bring with him in the afternoon, and he occupied every spare moment in getting them ready. At a quarter past two he summoned the carman of the store, and they loaded up the miscellaneous cargo needed for the coming mysteries, and by three all were before the large elegant mansion to which he had been directed. Dennis rang the bell and was shown by a servant into the front parlor, where he found Miss Ludolph, Miss Brown, a tall, haughty brunette, and the young lady of the house, Miss Winthrop, a bright, sunny-faced blonde, and two or three other young ladies of no special coloring or character, being indebted mainly to their toilets for their attractions. Dennis bowed to Miss Ludolph, and then turned toward the other ladies, expecting as a matter of course to be introduced. No introduction came, but his expectant manner was so obvious that Miss Ludolph colored and looked annoyed, and the other young ladies tittered outright.

Advancing a step or two she said, coldly, “Mr. Fleet, you may help Mapes carry the things into the back parlor, and then we will direct you as to the arrangement.”

Dennis crimsoned painfully. At first he was too confused to think, and merely obeyed mechanically. Then came the impulse to say boldly that this kind of thing might answer at the store, but not here, and he nearly carried it out; but soon followed the sober second thought, that such action would bring a blight over all his prospects, and involve the loss of his position at the store. Such giving way to passion would injure only himself. They would laugh, and merely suffer a momentary annoyance; to him and his the result would be most disastrous. Why should he let those who cared not a jot for him cause such sad injury?

By the time he had carried his first armful into the back parlor, he had resolved for his mother and sisters’ sakes that he would go through the following scenes as well as he could, and then turn his back on society till he could enter it a recognized gentleman; and with compressed lips and flashing eye he mentally vowed that that day should soon come.

As he was unpacking his materials he could not help hearing the conversation in the front parlor.

“Did you ever see such presumption?” exclaimed Miss Brown. “He evidently expected to be introduced, and that we should rise and courtesy all around.”

“He must have seen better days, for he certainly appeared like a gentleman,” said Miss Winthrop.

“I should hardly give that title to a man who swept a store out every morning,” replied Miss Brown.

“No, indeed!” chorused the three colorless young ladies.

“I know nothing about this young man,” said Miss Winthrop, ruffling her plumage somewhat for an argument, of which she was fond; “but, as a case in hand, suppose a highly educated and refined man for some reason swept a store out every morning, what would you call him?” and she looked around as if she had given a poser.

The colorless young ladies looked blank⁠—their natural expression.

“Nonsense!” said the positive Miss Brown; “such men don’t sweep stores. He may have passed current in some country village, but that is not our set.”

“But the case is certainly supposable,” retorted Miss Winthrop, more intent upon her argument than upon Dennis. “Come, what does the Countess say?” she asked, turning to Christine; for that was the familiar name by which she went among her young companions.

“The case is not supposable, but actual,” she answered, so distinctly that it seemed that she meant Dennis to hear. “As far as I have any means of judging, he is a refined, educated man, and I have learned from papa that his motive in sweeping the store is the support of his mother and sisters⁠—certainly a very worthy one. To your question, Susie, I answer unhesitatingly that in accordance with your American principles and professions he is a gentleman, and you ought to treat him as such. But you Americans are sometimes wonderfully inconsistent, and there is often a marvellously wide margin between your boasted equality and the reality. Now in Europe these questions have been settled for ages, and birth and rank define a person’s position accurately.”

“I do not believe in equality,” said Miss Brown, with a toss of her head. (Her father was a mighty brewer, but he and hers were in character and antecedents something like the froth on their own beer.)

Miss Winthrop was a little embarrassed at finding her supposed case a real one, for it might involve some practical action on her part. Many an ardent advocate of the people in theory gives them practically the cold shoulder, and is content to stay on the summit of Mt. Olympus. She was a girl of good impulses and strong convictions of abstract right, but rarely had either the courage or the opportunity to