e.

However this may be, there is no doubt that Mr. Byles Gridley was
beginning to take a part in his neighbors' welfare and misfortunes, such
as could hardly have been expected of a man so long lost in his books and
his scholastic duties. And among others, Myrtle Hazard had come in for a
share of his interest. He had met her now and then in her walks to and
from school and meeting, and had been taken with her beauty and her
apparent unconsciousness of it, which he attributed to the forlorn kind
of household in which she had grown up. He had got so far as to talk
with her now and then, and found himself puzzled, as well he might be, in
talking with a girl who had been growing into her early maturity in
antagonism with every influence that surrounded her.

"Love will reach her by and by," he said, "in spite of the dragons up at
the den yonder.

"'Centum fronte oculos, centum cervice gerebat
Argus, et hos unus saepe fefellit amor.'"

But there was something about Myrtle,--he hardly knew whether to call it
dignity, or pride, or reserve, or the mere habit of holding back brought
about by the system of repression under which she had been
educated,--which kept even the old Master of Arts at his distance. Yet he
was strongly drawn to her, and had a sort of presentiment that he might
be able to help her some day, and that very probably she would want his
help; for she was alone in the world, except for the dragons, and sure to
be assailed by foes from without and from within.

He noticed that her name was apt to come up in his conversations with
Murray Bradshaw; and, as he himself never introduced it, of course the
young man must have forced it, as conjurers force a card, and with some
special object. This set him thinking hard; and, as a result of it, he
determined the next time Mr. Bradshaw brought her name up to set him
talking.

So he talked, not suspecting how carefully the old man listened.

"It was a demonish hard case," he said, "that old Malachi had left his
money as he did. Myrtle Hazard was going to be the handsomest girl
about, when she came to her beauty, and she was coming to it mighty fast.
If they could only break that will, but it was no use trying. The
doctors said he was of sound mind for at least two years after making it.
If Silence Withers got the land claim, there'd be a pile, sure enough.
Myrtle Hazard ought to have it. If the girl had only inherited that
property--whew? She'd ha