as a matter of
course be filled by a person of the male sex. They agitated, they made
domiciliary visits, they wrote notes to influential citizens, and finally
announced as their candidate the young lady who had won and worn the
school name of "The Terror," who was elected. She was just the person
for the place: wide awake, with all her wits about her, full of every
kind of knowledge, and, above all, strong on points of order and details
of management, so that she could prompt the presiding officer, to do
which is often the most essential duty of a Secretary. The President,
the worthy rector, was good at plain sailing in the track of the common
moralities and proprieties, but was liable to get muddled if anything
came up requiring swift decision and off-hand speech. The Terror had
schooled herself in the debating societies of the Institute, and would
set up the President, when he was floored by an awkward question, as
easily as if he were a ninepin which had been bowled over.
It has been already mentioned that the Pansophian Society received
communications from time to time from writers outside of its own
organization. Of late these had been becoming more frequent. Many of
them were sent in anonymously, and as there were numerous visitors to the
village, and two institutions not far removed from it, both full of
ambitious and intelligent young persons, it was often impossible to trace
the papers to their authors. The new Secretary was alive with curiosity,
and as sagacious a little body as one might find if in want of a
detective. She could make a pretty shrewd guess whether a paper was
written by a young or old person, by one of her own sex or the other, by
an experienced hand or a novice.
Among the anonymous papers she received was one which exercised her
curiosity to an extraordinary degree. She felt a strong suspicion that
"the Sachem," as the boat-crews used to call him, "the Recluse," "the
Night-Hawk," "the Sphinx," as others named him, must be the author of it.
It appeared to her the production of a young person of a reflective,
poetical turn of mind. It was not a woman's way of writing; at least, so
thought the Secretary. The writer had travelled much; had resided in
Italy, among other places. But so had many of the summer visitors and
residents of Arrowhead Village. The handwriting was not decisive; it had
some points of resemblance with the pencilled orders for books which
Maurice sent to the Library, but
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