ut it could
not be helped. Myrtle had exercised the customary privilege of young
ladies at parties, and had turned from talking with one to talking with
another,--that was all. Fortunately, for him the young man who had been
introduced at such a most critical moment was not one from whom he need
apprehend any serious interference. He felt grateful beyond measure to
pretty Susan Posey, who, as he had good reason for believing, retained
her hold upon her early lover, and was looking forward with bashful
interest to the time when she should become Mrs. Lindsay. It was better
to put up quietly with his disappointment; and, if he could get no
favorable opportunity that evening to resume his conversation at the
interesting point where he left it off, he would call the next day and
bring matters to a conclusion.

He called accordingly the next morning, but was disappointed in not
seeing Myrtle. She had hardly slept that night, and was suffering from a
bad headache, which last reason was her excuse for not seeing company.

He called again, the following day, and learned that Miss Hazard had just
left the city, and gone on a visit to Oxbow Village:

CHAPTER XXVII.

MINE AND COUNTERMINE.

What the nature of the telegram was which had produced such an effect on
the feelings and plans of Mr. William Murray Bradshaw nobody especially
interested knew but himself. We may conjecture that it announced some
fact, which had leaked out a little prematurely, relating to the issue of
the great land-case in which the firm was interested. However that might
be, Mr. Bradshaw no sooner heard that Myrtle had suddenly left the city
for Oxbow Village,--for what reason he puzzled himself to guess,--than he
determined to follow her at once, and take up the conversation he had
begun at the party where it left off. And as the young poet had received
his quietus for the present at the publisher's, and as Master Gridley had
nothing specially to detain him, they too returned at about the same
time, and so our old acquaintances were once more together within the
familiar precincts where we have been accustomed to see them.

Master Gridley did not like playing the part of a spy, but it must be
remembered that he was an old college officer, and had something of the
detective's sagacity, and a certain cunning derived from the habit of
keeping an eye on mischievous students. If any underhand contrivance was
at work, involving the welfare o