iven
if his memory lingered longer over the image of the man than of the
woman. He remembered with a thrill at his heart what Eliphalet Hodges
had been to him in the dark days of his youth, and he confessed to
himself with a half shame that his greatest regret was in leaving him.

The feeling with which he had bidden his guardian good-bye was one not
of regret at his own loss, but of pity for her distress. To Elizabeth
his mind only turned for a moment to dismiss her with a mild contempt.
Something hard that had always been in his nature seemed to have
suddenly manifested itself.

"It is so much better this way," he said, "for if the awakening had come
later we should have been miserable together." And then his thoughts
went forward to the new scenes towards which he was speeding.

He had never been to Cincinnati. Indeed, except on picnic days, he had
scarcely ever been outside of Dexter. But Cincinnati was the great city
of his State, the one towards which adventurous youth turned its steps
when real life was to be begun. He dreaded and yet longed to be there,
and his heart was in a turmoil of conflicting emotion as he watched the
landscape flit by.

It was a clear August day. Nature was trembling and fainting in the
ecstasies of sensuous heat. Beside the railway the trenches which in
spring were gurgling brooks were now dry and brown, and the reeds which
had bent forward to kiss the water now leaned over from very weakness,
dusty and sickly. The fields were ripening to the harvest. There was in
the air the smell of fresh-cut hay. The corn-stalks stood like a host
armed with brazen swords to resist the onslaught of that other force
whose weapon was the corn-knife. Farther on, between the trees, the much
depleted river sparkled in the sun and wound its way, now near, now away
from the road, a glittering dragon in an enchanted wood.

Such scenes as these occupied the young man's mind, until, amid the
shouts of brake-men, the vociferous solicitations of the baggage-man,
and a general air of bustle and preparation, the train thundered into
the Grand Central Station. Something seized Brent's heart like a great
compressing hand. He was frightened for an instant, and then he was
whirled out with the rest of the crowd, up the platform, through the
thronged waiting-room, into the street.

Then the cries of the eager men outside of "Cab, sir? cab, sir?" "Let me
take your baggage," and "Which way, sir?" bewildered him. He d