still and
reflected.

"Now, what in the ding-nation is that woman up to? What is she trying to
do, I wonder? Why, she's as different from what she was when I first
knew her as a butterfly is from a caterpillar. Why, there ain't a
pearter woman on the continent. No wonder Paul lost his head in that
house! She's up to something, and I'll find out what it is."

Silas was always suspicious, but on this occasion he bethought himself
of the fact that he had not been dragged into the house; he had been
under no compulsion to knock at the door; indeed, he had taken advantage
of the slightest hint on the part of the daughter--a hint that may have
been a mere form of politeness. He remembered, too, that he had
frequently gone by the house at night, and had heard the piano going,
accompanied by the singing of one or the other of the ladies. His
reflections would have made him ashamed of himself, but he had never
cultivated such feelings. He left that sort of thing to the women and
children.

In no long time he repeated his visit, and met with the same pleasurable
experience. On this occasion, Eugenia remained in the parlour only a
short time. For a diversion, the mother played a few of the old-time
tunes on the piano, and sang some of the songs that Silas had loved in
his youth. This done, she wheeled around on the stool, and began to talk
about Paul.

"If I had a son like that," she said, "I should be immensely proud of
him."

"You have a fine daughter," Silas suggested, by way of consolation.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Yes, but you know we always want that which
we have not. Yet they say that envy is among the mortal sins."

"Well, a sin's a sin, I reckon," remarked Silas.

"Oh, no! there are degrees in sin. I used to know a preacher who could
run the scale of evil-doing and thinking, just as I can trip along the
notes on the piano."

"They once tried to make a preacher out of me," remarked Silas, "but
when I slipped in the church one day and went up into the pulpit, I
found it was a great deal too big for me."

"They make them larger now," said the lady, "so that they will hold the
exhorter and the horrible example at the same time."

"Did Paul ever see my picture there?" asked Silas, changing the
conversation into a more congenial channel.

"Why, I think so," replied the lady placidly. "I think he asked about
it, and I told him that we had known each other long ago, which was not
at all the truth."

"What