AN UNFAIR ENDOWMENT To Bettina Vanderpoel had been given, to an extraordinary extent, the extraordinary thing which is called beauty--which is a thing entirely set apart from mere good looks or prettiness.

This thing is extraordinary because, if statistics were taken, the result would probably be the discovery that not three human beings in a million really possess it.

That it should be bestowed at all--since it is so rare--seems as unfair a thing as appears to the mere mortal mind the bestowal of unbounded wealth, since it quite as inevitably places the life of its owner upon an abnormal plane.

There are millions of pretty women, and billions of personable men, but the man or woman of entire physical beauty may cross one's pathway only once in a lifetime--or not at all.

In the latter case it is natural to doubt the absolute truth of the rumours that the thing exists.