downright anger with which she had dealt out her judgments there at
the Point. Only one drop of comfort could Flint extract from the
memory of that interview, and he smiled cynically as he remembered the
warmth which marked her description of her friend, the editor of the
"Trans-Continental." When the surprises of the sudden enlightenment
and the emotion of the moment had passed away, which feeling, he asked
himself, would remain in her mind,--the liking for the ideal or the
disliking of the experienced? For both there was not room, yet each
was intense. It was a curious psychological problem. At a further
remove it would have afforded him a keen intellectual pleasure to
speculate upon the probable working of a woman's heart under such
conditions. As it was, he found himself incapable either of solving
the problem or of letting it alone. His mind dwelt upon it
continuously. He was almost inclined, like Eugene Aram, to tell his
story disguised to strangers, and listen to their idle speculations.
Brady was a comfort at this time. He was so responsive in his
sympathies and so obtuse in his perceptions. It was possible to talk
all round a subject to him with no fear that his imagination would
travel a step farther than it was led. It needed no urging, either,
for he appeared to have a sentiment of his own for Nepaug and all its
associations, and drew towards it as naturally as a moth to a flame or
a woman to a mirror.

Indeed, Brady often dwelt spontaneously upon the various episodes of
the days at the beach,--the fireworks, the shipwreck, the evening at
Flying Point. He was a capital mimic, and loved to imitate Dr. Cricket
striding up and down the room, with his hands clasping his elbows
behind his back and his chin-whiskers thrust out before as a herald of
his approach. Then casting aside all the scruples which should have
been raised within him by ties of blood, he would give a burlesque of
Miss Standish peering out from beneath her little gray curls at the
world, and rapping out her opinion of those around her in good set
terms.

After her came Mr. Anstice, looking busily in every corner for the
book he had in his hand. This the mimic followed by a representation
of Ben Bradford, with hand propped on knee and chin on hand, glooming
from his corner upon Winifred Anstice, when she ventured to address
some one else.

"I cannot do Miss Anstice," Brady confessed one evening. It was
October then, and the two friends were