esis of all that was most charming to this
fancy. This is a truth which it is the convention of the poets and the
novelists to deny; but it is also true that she might have remained the
sum of all that was loveliest if she would; or if she could.

It was chiefly because she would not or could not that his glance
recognised the charm of Miss Anderson's back hair, both in its straying
gossamer and in the loose mass in which it was caught up under her hat,
when he laid her sacque on her shoulders. They met that afternoon at a
Senator's, and in the house of a distinguished citizen, to whose wife
Dan had been presented at Mrs. Whittington's, and who had somehow got
his address, and sent him a card for her evening. They encountered
here with a jocose old friendliness, and a profession of being tired of
always meeting Miss Anderson and Mr. Mavering. He brought her salad and
ice, and they made an appointment for another walk in the morning, if it
was fine.

He carried her some flowers. A succession of fine days followed, and
they walked every morning. Sometimes Dan was late, and explained that
it was his patent-right man had kept him. She was interested in the
patent-right man, whom Dan began to find not quite so simple as at
first, but she was not exacting with him about his want of punctuality;
she was very easy-going; she was not always ready herself. When he began
to beat about the bush, to talk insincerities, and to lose himself in
intentionless plausibilities, she waited with serene patience for him to
have done, and met him on their habitual ground of frankness and reality
as if he had not left it. He got to telling her all his steps with his
patent-right man, who seemed to be growing mote and more slippery, and
who presently developed a demand for funds. Then she gave him some very
shrewd, practical advice, and told him to go right into the hotel office
and telegraph to his father while she was putting on her bonnet.

"Yes," he said, "that's what I thought of doing." But he admired her for
advising him; he said to himself that Miss Anderson was the kind of girl
his father would admire. She was good, and she was of the world too;
that was what his father meant. He imagined himself arriving home and
saying, "Well father, you know that despatch I sent you, about Lafflin's
wanting money?" and telling him about Miss Anderson. Then he fancied her
acquainted with his sisters and visiting them, and his father more and
more fo