trils, like a
stiletto, deep into the gray kernels that lie in the core of the brain.
Excellent in cases of sudden syncope or fainting, such as sometimes
require the opening of windows, the dashing on of cold water, the cutting
of stays, perhaps, with a scene of more or less tumultuous perturbation
and afflux of clamorous womanhood.

So armed, Byles Gridley, A. M., champion of unprotected innocence,
grasped his ivory-handled cane and sallied forth on his way to The
Poplars.

CHAPTER XXX.

MASTER BYLES GRIDLEY CALLS ON MISS CYNTHIA BADLAM.

MISS Cynthia Badlam was seated in a small parlor which she was accustomed
to consider her own during her long residences at The Poplars. The entry
stove warmed it but imperfectly, and she looked pinched and cold, for the
evenings were still pretty sharp, and the old house let in the chill
blasts, as old houses are in the habit of doing. She was sitting at her
table, with a little trunk open before her. She had taken some papers
from it, which she was looking over, when a knock at her door announced a
visitor, and Master Byles Gridley entered the parlor.

As he came into the room, she gathered the papers together and replaced
them in the trunk, which she locked, throwing an unfinished piece of
needle-work over it, putting the key in her pocket, and gathering herself
up for company. Something of all this Master Gridley saw through his
round spectacles, but seemed not to see, and took his seat like a visitor
making a call of politeness.

A visitor at such an hour, of the male sex, without special provocation,
without social pretext, was an event in the life of the desolate
spinster. Could it be--No, it could not--and yet--and yet! Miss Cynthia
threw back the rather common-looking but comfortable shawl which covered
her shoulders, and showed her quite presentable figure, arrayed with a
still lingering thought of that remote contingency which might yet offer
itself at some unexpected moment; she adjusted the carefully plaited cap,
which was not yet of the lasciate ogni speranza pattern, and as she
obeyed these instincts of her sex, she smiled a welcome to the
respectable, learned, and independent bachelor. Mr. Gridley had a frosty
but kindly age before him, with a score or so of years to run, which it
was after all not strange to fancy might be rendered more cheerful by the
companionship of a well-conserved and amiably disposed woman, if any such
should happen to fall in