ly stay here long enough?"

"What paper has had anything about it, Lurida? I have not seen or heard
of its being mentioned in any of the papers."

"You know that rather queer-looking young man who has been about here for
some time,--the same one who gave the account of his interview with a
celebrated author? Well, he has handed me a copy of a paper in which he
writes, 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.' He talks about
this village in a very free and easy way. He says there is a Sphinx here,
who has mystified us all."

"And you have been chatting with that fellow! Don't you know that he'll
have you and all of us in his paper? Don't you know that nothing is safe
where one of those fellows gets in with his note-book and pencil? Oh,
Lurida, Lurida, do be careful!" What with this mysterious young man and
this very questionable newspaper-paragraph writer, you will be talked
about, if you don't mind, before you know it. You had better let the
riddle of the Sphinx alone. If you must deal with such dangerous people,
the safest way is to set one of them to find out the other.--I wonder if
we can't get this new man to interview the visitor you have so much
curiosity about. That might be managed easily enough without your having
anything to do with it. Let me alone, and I will arrange it. But mind,
now, you must not meddle; if you do, you will spoil everything, and get
your name in the 'Household Inquisitor' in a way you won't like."

"Don't be frightened about me, Euthymia. I don't mean to give him a
chance to work me into his paper, if I can help it. But if you can get
him to try his skill upon this interesting personage and his antipathy,
so much the better. I am very curious about it, and therefore about him.
I want to know what has produced this strange state of feeling in a young
man who ought to have all the common instincts of a social being. I
believe there are unexplained facts in the region of sympathies and
antipathies which will repay study with a deeper insight into the
mysteries of life than we have dreamed of hitherto. I often wonder
whether there are not heart-waves and soul-waves as well as
'brain-waves,' which some have already recognized."

Euthymia wondered, as well she might, to hear this young woman talking
the language of science like an adept. The truth is, Lurida was one of
those persons who never are young, and who, by way of compensation, will
never be old. They are found in both sexes