e had
her own way of late as never before; in fact, the women were afraid of
her. Miss Silence felt that she could not be responsible for her any
longer. She had hopes for a time that Myrtle would go through the
customary spiritual paroxysm under the influence of the Rev. Mr. Stoker's
assiduous exhortations; but since she had broken off with him, Miss
Silence had looked upon her as little better than a backslider. And now
that the girl was beginning to show the tendencies which seemed to come
straight down to her from the belle of the last century, (whose rich
physical developments seemed to the under-vitalized spinster as in
themselves a kind of offence against propriety,) the forlorn woman folded
her thin hands and looked on hopelessly, hardly venturing a remonstrance
for fear of some new explosion. As for Cynthia, she was comparatively
easy since she had, through Mr. Byles Gridley, upset the minister's
questionable arrangement of religious intimacy. She had, in fact, in a
quiet way, given Mr. Bradshaw to understand that he would probably meet
Myrtle at the Parsonage if he dropped in at their small gathering.
Clement walked over to Mrs. Hopkins's after his dinner with the young
lawyer, and asked if Susan was ready to go with him. At the sound of his
voice, Gifted Hopkins smote his forehead, and called himself, in subdued
tones, a miserable being. His imagination wavered uncertain for a while
between pictures of various modes of ridding himself of existence, and
fearful deeds involving the life of others. He had no fell purpose of
actually doing either, but there was a gloomy pleasure in contemplating
them as possibilities, and in mentally sketching the "Lines written in
Despair" which would be found in what was but an hour before the pocket
of the youthful bard, G. H., victim of a hopeless passion. All this
emotion was in the nature of a surprise to the young man. He had fully
believed himself desperately in love with Myrtle Hazard; and it was not
until Clement came into the family circle with the right of eminent
domain over the realm of Susan's affections, that this unfortunate
discovered that Susan's pretty ways and morning dress and love of poetry
and liking for his company had been too much for him, and that he was
henceforth to be wretched during the remainder of his natural life,
except so far as he could unburden himself in song.

Mr. William Murray Bradshaw had asked the privilege of waiting upon
M