on enough in their blood to
begin with,--shapely, large-nerved, firm-fibred and fine-fibred, with
well-spread bases to their heads for the ground-floor of the faculties,
and well-vaulted arches for the upper range of apprehensions and
combinations. "Plenty of basements," he used to say, "without attics and
skylights. Plenty of skylights without rooms enough and space enough
below." But here was "a three-story brain," he said to himself as he
looked at it, and this was the youth who was to find his complement in
our pretty little Susan Posey! His judgment may seem to have been hasty,
but he took the measure of young men of twenty at sight from long and
sagacious observation, as Nurse Byloe knew the "heft" of a baby the
moment she fixed her old eyes on it.

Clement was well acquainted with Byles Gridley, though he had never seen
him, for Susan's letters had had a good deal to say about him of late.
It was agreed between them that the story should be kept as quiet as
possible, and that the young girl should not know the name of her
deliverer,--it might save awkward complications. It was not likely that
she would be disposed to talk of her adventure, which had ended so
disastrously, and thus the whole story would soon die out.

The effect of the violent shock she had experienced was to change the
whole nature of Myrtle for the time. Her mind was unsettled: she could
hardly recall anything except the plunge over the fall. She was
perfectly docile and plastic,--was ready to go anywhere Mr. Gridley
wanted her to go, without any sign of reluctance. And so it was agreed
that he should carry her back in his covered wagon that very night. All
possible arrangements were made to render her journey comfortable. The
fast mare had to trot very gently, and the old master would stop and
adjust the pillows from time to time, and administer the restoratives
which the physician had got ready, all as naturally and easily as if he
had been bred a nurse, vastly to his own surprise, and with not a little
gain to his self-appreciation. He was a serviceable kind of body on
occasion, after all, was he not, hey, Mr. Byles Gridley? he said to
himself.

At half past four o'clock on Sunday morning the shepherd brought the
stray lamb into the paved yard at The Poplars, and roused the slumbering
household to receive back the wanderer.

It was the Irishwoman, Kitty Fagan, huddled together in such amorphous
guise, that she looked as if she h