ion, was troubled by Philip's absorption and the cruel
disappointment in store for him. To her he was still the little boy, and
all her tenderness for him was stirred to shield him from the suffering
she feared.

But what could she do? Philip liked to talk about Evelyn, to dwell upon
her peculiarities and qualities, to hear her praised; to this extent
he was confidential with his cousin, but never in regard to his own
feeling. That was a secret concerning which he was at once too humble
and too confident to share with any other. None knew better than he the
absurd presumption of aspiring to the hand of such a great heiress, and
yet he nursed the vanity that no other man could ever appreciate and
love her as he did.

Alice was still more distracted and in sympathy with Philip's evident
aspirations by her own love for Evelyn and her growing admiration for
the girl's character. It so happened that mutual sympathy--who can say
how it was related to Philip?--had drawn them much together, and chance
had given them many opportunities for knowing each other. Alice had so
far come out of her shell, and broken the reserve of her life, as to
make frequent visits at the inn, and Mrs. Mavick and Evelyn found it the
most natural and agreeable stroll by the river-side to the farmhouse,
where naturally, while the mother amused herself with the original
eccentricities of Patience, her daughter grew into an intimacy with
Alice.

As for the feelings of Evelyn in these days--her first experience of
something like freedom in the world--the historian has only universal
experience to guide him. In her heart was working the consciousness that
she had been singled out as worthy to share the confidence of a man in
his most secret ambitions and aspirations, in the dreams of youth which
seemed to her so noble. For these aspirations and dreams concerned the
world in which she had lived most and felt most.

If Philip had talked to her as he had to Celia about his plans for
success in life she would have been less interested. But there was
nothing to warn her personally in these unworldly confessions. Nor did
Philip ever seem to ask anything of her except sympathy in his ideas.
And then there was the friendship of Alice, which could not but
influence the girl. In the shelter of that the intercourse of the summer
took on natural relations. For some natures there is no nurture of love
like the security of family protection, under cover of which the