t
occasions. Dear souls! they only half knew what they were doing it for.
Does the bird know why its feathers grow more brilliant and its voice
becomes musical in the pairing season?

And so, in the midst of this quiet inland town, where a mere accident had
placed Mr. Bernard Langdon, there was a concentration of explosive
materials which might at any time change its Arcadian and academic repose
into a scene of dangerous commotion. What said Helen Darley, when she
saw with her woman's glance that more than one girl, when she should be
looking at her book, was looking over it toward the master's desk? Was
her own heart warmed by any livelier feeling than gratitude, as its life
began to flow with fuller pulses, and the morning sky again looked bright
and the flowers recovered their lost fragrance? Was there any strange,
mysterious affinity between the master and the dark girl who sat by
herself? Could she call him at will by looking at him? Could it be
that--? It made her shiver to think of it.--And who was that strange
horseman who passed Mr. Bernard at dusk the other evening, looking so
like Mephistopheles galloping hard to be in season at the witches'
Sabbath-gathering? That must be the cousin of Elsie's who wants to marry
her, they say. A dangerous-looking fellow for a rival, if one took a
fancy to the dark girl! And who is she, and what?--by what demon is she
haunted, by what taint is she blighted, by what curse is she followed, by
what destiny is she marked, that her strange beauty has such a terror in
it, and that hardly one shall dare to love her, and her eye glitters
always, but warms for none?

Some of these questions are ours. Some were Helen Darley's. Some of
them mingled with the dreams of Bernard Langdon, as he slept the night
after meeting the strange horseman. In the morning he happened to be a
little late in entering the schoolroom. There was something between the
leaves of the Virgil which lay upon his desk. He opened it and saw a
freshly gathered mountain-flower. He looked at Elsie, instinctively,
involuntarily. She had another such flower on her breast.

A young girl's graceful compliment,--that is all,--no doubt,--no doubt.
It was odd that the flower should have happened to be laid between the
leaves of the Fourth Book of the "AEneid," and at this line,

"Incipit effari, mediaque in voce resistit."

A remembrance of an ancient superstition flashed through the master's
min