he lake shore and nursed back
to life as Miss Grierson's latest defiance of the conventions.

It should have been a memorable day for Matthew Broffin when he had this
sick man pointed out to him as Miss Grierson's companion in the high
trap--which was also one of Miss Margery's bids for criticism in a town
where the family carryall was still a feature. But Broffin was
sufficiently human to see only a very beautiful young woman sitting
correctly erect on the slanting driving-seat and holding the reins over
a high-stepping horse which, he was told, had cost Jasper Grierson every
cent of a thousand dollars. To be sure, he saw the man, as one sees a
vanishing figure in a kaleidoscope. But there was nothing in the
clean-shaven face of the gaunt, and as yet rather haggard, convalescent
to evoke the faintest thrill of interest--or of memory.

XXII

IN THE BURGLAR-PROOF

A week and a day after the opening of new vistas at Miss Grierson's
"evening," Griswold--Raymer's intercession with the Widow Holcomb having
paved the way--took a favorable opportunity of announcing his intention
of leaving Mereside. It figured as a grateful disappointment to him--one
of the many she was constantly giving him--that Margery placed no
obstacles in the way of the intention. On the contrary, she approved the
plan.

"I know how you feel," she said, nodding complete comprehension. "You
want to have a place that you can call your own; a place where you can
go and come as you please and settle down to work. You _are_ going to
work, aren't you?--on the book, I mean?"

Griswold replaced in its proper niche the volume he had been reading. It
was Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_, and he had been wondering by what
ironical chance it had found a place in the banker's library.

"Yes; that is what I mean to do," he returned. "But it will have to be
done in such scraps and parings of time as I can save from some
bread-and-butter occupation. One must eat to live, you know."

She was sitting on the arm of one of the big library lounging-chairs and
looking up at him with a smile that was suspiciously innocent and
childlike.

"You mean that you will have to work for your living?" she asked.

"Exactly."

"What were you thinking of doing?"

"I don't know," he confessed. "I have been hoping that Raymer might help
me to find a place; possibly in the machine works as an under
bookkeeper, or something of that sort. Not that I know very much about