r."
And he seated himself between the chair of Furrey and the willow fabric
in which Alice had resumed her place. This addition to the company was
not at all to the taste of the assistant cashier, who soon took his
leave, shaking hands with the ladies, with his best bow.

"After all, I do prefer a chair," said Farnham, getting down from his
balustrade, and throwing away his cigar.

He sat with his back to the moonlight. On his left was Alice, who, as
soon as Furrey took his departure, settled back in her willow chair in
her former attitude of graceful ease. On the right was Mrs. Belding, in
her thin, cool dress of gauzy black. Farnham looked from one to the
other as they talked, and that curious exercise, so common to young men
in such circumstances, went through his mind. He tried to fancy how
Mrs. Belding looked at nineteen, and how Miss Belding would look at
fifty, and the thought gave him singular pleasure. His eyes rested with
satisfaction on the kindly and handsome face of the widow, her fine
shoulders and arms, and comfortable form, and then, turning to the pure
and exquisite features of the tall girl, who was smiling so freshly and
honestly on him, his mind leaped forward through corning years, and he
said to himself: "What a wealth of the woman there is there--for
somebody." An aggressive feeling of disapproval of young Furrey took
possession of him, and he said, sharply:

"What a very agreeable young man Mr. Furrey is?"

Mrs. Belding assented, and Miss Alice laughed heartily, and his mind
was set at rest for the moment.

They passed a long time together. At first Mrs. Belding and Arthur
"made the expenses" of the conversation; but she soon dropped away, and
Alice, under the influence of the night and the moonlight and Farnham's
frank and gentle provocation, soon found herself talking with as much
freedom and energy as if it were a girls' breakfast. With far more,
indeed,--for nature takes care of such matters, and no girl can talk to
another as she can to a man, under favoring stars. The conversation
finally took a personal turn, and Alice, to her own amazement, began to
talk of her life at school, and with sweet and loving earnestness sang
the praises of Madame de Veaudrey.

"I wish you could know her," she said to Farnham, with a sudden impulse
of sympathy. He was listening to her intently, and enjoying her eager,
ingenuous speech as much as her superb beauty, as the moon shone full
on her young face,