ny other circumstances,
her father would have been unwilling to take a young fellow of whom he
knew so little under his roof; but this was his nephew, and anything
that seemed like to amuse or please Elsie was agreeable to him. He had
grown almost desperate, and felt as if any change in the current of her
life and feelings might save her from some strange paroxysm of dangerous
mental exaltation or sullen perversion of disposition, from which some
fearful calamity might come to herself or others.

Dick had been several weeks at the Dudley mansion. A few days before, he
had made a sudden dash for the nearest large city,--and when the Doctor
met him, he was just returning from his visit.

It had been a curious meeting between the two young persons, who had
parted so young and after such strange relations with each other. When
Dick first presented himself at the mansion, not one in the house would
have known him for the boy who had left them all so suddenly years ago.
He was so dark, partly from his descent, partly from long habits of
exposure, that Elsie looked almost fair beside him. He had something of
the family beauty which belonged to his cousin, but his eye had a fierce
passion in it, very unlike the cold glitter of Elsie's. Like many people
of strong and imperious temper, he was soft-voiced and very gentle in
his address, when he had no special reason for being otherwise. He soon
found reasons enough to be as amiable as he could force himself to be
with his uncle and his cousin. Elsie was to his fancy. She had a strange
attraction for him, quite unlike anything he had ever known in other
women. There was something, too, in early associations: when those who
parted as children meet as man and woman, there is always a renewal
of that early experience which followed the taste of the forbidden
fruit,--a natural blush of consciousness, not without its charm.

Nothing could be more becoming than the behavior of "Richard Venner,
Esquire, the guest of Dudley Venner, Esquire, at his noble mansion," as
he was announced in the Court column of the "Rockland Weekly Universe."
He was pleased to find himself treated with kindness and attention as a
relative. He made himself very agreeable by abundant details concerning
the religious, political, social, commercial, and educational progress
of the South American cities and states. He was himself much interested
in everything that was going on about the Dudley mansion, walked all
o