“Terrible!” said that little lady, joining her.  “I hope it snows enough to go sleigh riding.”

“Oh, dear,” said Carrie, with whom the sufferings of Father Goriot were still keen.  “That’s all you think of.  Aren’t you sorry for the people who haven’t anything to-night?”

“Of course I am,” said Lola; “but what can I do?  I haven’t anything.”

Carrie smiled.

“You wouldn’t care, if you had,” she returned.

“I would, too,” said Lola.  “But people never gave me anything when I was hard up.”

“Isn’t it just awful?” said Carrie, studying the winter’s storm.

“Look at that man over there,” laughed Lola, who had caught sight of some one falling down.  “How sheepish men look when they fall, don’t they?”

“We’ll have to take a coach to-night,” answered Carrie absently.

In the lobby of the Imperial, Mr. Charles Drouet was just arriving, shaking the snow from a very handsome ulster.  Bad weather had driven him home early and stirred his desire for those pleasures which shut out the snow and gloom of life.  A good dinner, the company of a young woman, and an evening at the theatre were the chief things for him.

“Why, hello, Harry!” he said, addressing a lounger in one of the comfortable lobby chairs.  “How are you?”

“Oh, about six and six,” said the other.  “Rotten weather, isn’t it?”

“Well, I should say,” said the other.  “I’ve been just sitting here thinking where I’d go to-night.”

“Come along with me,” said Drouet.  “I can introduce you to something dead swell.”

“Who is it?” said the other.

“Oh, a couple of girls over here in Fortieth Street.  We could have a dandy time.  I was just looking for you.”

“Supposing you get ’em and take ’em out to dinner?”

“Sure,” said Drouet.  “Wait’ll I go upstairs and change my clothes.”

“Well, I’ll be in the barber shop,” said the other.  “I want to get a shave.”

“All right,” said Drouet, creaking off in his good shoes toward the elevator.  The old butterfly was as light on the wing as ever.

On an incoming vestibuled Pullman, speeding at forty miles an hour through the snow of the evening, were three others, all related.

“First call for dinner in the dining-car,” a Pullman servitor was announcing, as he hastened through the aisle in snow-white apron and jacket.

“I don’t believe I want to play any more,” said the youngest, a black-haired beauty, turned supercilious by fortune, as she pushed a euchre hand away from her.

“Shall we go into dinner?” inquired her husband, who was all that fine raiment can make.

“Oh, not yet,” she answered.  “I don’t want to play any more, though.”

“Jessica,” said her mother, who was also a study in what good clothing can do for age, “push that pin down in your tie—­it’s coming up.”