o on with your revelations of this deep
conspiracy."

"You don't deserve to hear; but as it gives me pleasure to tell you, I
will. Cousin Susan writes to the Costellos to come to the Anstices'
house on the evening of November tenth. They arrive. We are there
already. Tableau--old Nepaug minus Dr. Cricket and Ben Bradford--and a
bouquet for Mistress Nora, with her brooch hanging from it in a little
bag which Miss Standish was manufacturing when I came away. Now isn't
that a scheme?"

"The tenth of November," responded Flint, as though the latter part of
the sentence had escaped him--"and am I to be invited?"

"Why, of course!" exclaimed Brady, impatiently. "Weren't you the one
to save her life? Worse luck to you for having the honor fall to your
share!"

"Then," said Flint, with that curious obliviousness of the important
parts of his companion's remarks,--"then in common civility I ought to
call there beforehand."

"Ah! Flint, I'm glad to see you waking up to some decent sense of
social observances."

"What time is it?" asked his friend, absently, oblivious of the watch
in his pocket.

"Quarter before eight," Brady answered.

"Then out of my room with you, for I have just time to dress and get
down there. If one must do these things, the sooner they are out of
the way the better."

CHAPTER XV

A BIRTHDAY

_An Extract from the Journal of Miss Susan
Standish, New York, November 12._

It is nearly two weeks since I left Oldburyport, and in spite of the
Anstices' hospitality I have been homesick ever since. When we reach
middle age nothing suits us so well as village life. The small events
occupy and divert our minds without wearying them with the bewildering
whirl of the city. The interest of our neighbors in us and our
affairs, which is annoying in youth, becomes more grateful as life
goes on, and we discover how little real thoughtfulness and interest
in others the world contains. As for the narrowing influences of
village life, I don't see that people in Oldburyport are any more
provincial or prejudiced than they are in New York,--not so much so, I
really think, for they are forced by the very smallness of their
circle to find their interests in the affairs of the great world, and
the lack of social excitements gives them so much more time for
reading. To be sure, when people are unhappy there is less to div