rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved
that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could
watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every
word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of
her existence.

Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him
warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her
shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice
just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled
gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which
all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one
woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there
was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to
throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss
Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the
universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was
the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the
treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman.
She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a
widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous
personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his
session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems
and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion
embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but
which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print.

He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with
one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not
easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was
his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In
fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had
impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which
characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright,
keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a
tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry
and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its
idolatry of her father and herself.

"So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hard