useful in gathering material for literary use.  She studied types and eccentric characters, and this seemed to her a capital hunting ground.  Jefferson, who, as a rule, was timid with girls and avoided them, found this girl quite unlike the others he had known.  Her quiet, forceful demeanour appealed to him strongly, and he lingered with her, chatting about his work, which had so many interests in common with her own, until refreshments were served, when the affair broke up.  This first meeting had been followed by a call at the Rossmore residence, and the acquaintance had kept up until Jefferson, for the first time since he came to manhood, was surprised and somewhat alarmed at finding himself strangely and unduly interested in a person of the opposite sex.

The young artist’s courteous manner, his serious outlook on life, his high moral principles, so rarely met with nowadays in young men of his age and class, could hardly fail to appeal to Shirley, whose ideals of men had been somewhat rudely shattered by those she had hitherto met.  Above all, she demanded in a man the refinement of the true gentleman, together with strength of character and personal courage.  That Jefferson Ryder came up to this standard she was soon convinced.  He was certainly a gentleman:  his views on a hundred topics of the hour expressed in numerous conversations assured her as to his principles, while a glance at his powerful physique left no doubt possible as to his courage.  She rightly guessed that this was no poseur trying to make an impression and gain her confidence.  There was an unmistakable ring of sincerity in all his words, and his struggle at home with his father, and his subsequent brave and successful fight for his own independence and self-respect, more than substantiated all her theories.  And the more Shirley let her mind dwell on Jefferson Ryder and his blue eyes and serious manner, the more conscious she became that the artist was encroaching more upon her thoughts and time than was good either for her work or for herself.

So their casual acquaintance grew into a real friendship and comradeship.  Further than that Shirley promised herself it should never go.  Not that Jefferson had given her the slightest hint that he entertained the idea of making her his wife one day, only she was sophisticated enough to know the direction in which run the minds of men who are abnormally interested in one girl, and long before this Shirley had made up her mind that she would never marry.  Firstly, she was devoted to her father and could not bear the thought of ever leaving him; secondly, she was fascinated by her literary work and she was practical enough to know that matrimony, with its visions of slippers and cradles, would be fatal to any ambition of that kind.  She liked Jefferson immensely--more, perhaps, than any man she had yet met—­and she did not think any the less of him because of her resolve not to get entangled in the meshes of Cupid.  In any case he had not asked her to marry him—­perhaps the idea was far from his thoughts.  Meantime, she could enjoy his friendship freely without fear of embarrassing entanglements.