sumption was pushed to fatuity.

On Verena, however, they produced no impression that prevented her from
saying simply, without the least rancour, "Well, if you expect to draw
me back five hundred years, I hope you won't tell Miss Birdseye." And as
Ransom did not seize immediately the reason of her allusion, she went
on, "You know she is convinced it will be just the other way. I went to
see her after you had been at Cambridge--almost immediately."

"Darling old lady--I hope she's well," the young man said.

"Well, she's tremendously interested."

"She's always interested in something, isn't she?"

"Well, this time it's in our relations, yours and mine," Verena replied,
in a tone in which only Verena could say a thing like that. "You ought
to see how she throws herself into them. She is sure it will all work
round for your good."

"All what, Miss Tarrant?" Ransom asked.

"Well, what I told her. She is sure you are going to become one of our
leaders, that you are very gifted for treating great questions and
acting on masses of people, that you will become quite enthusiastic
about our uprising, and that when you go up to the top as one of our
champions it will all have been through me."

Ransom stood there, smiling at her; the dusky glow in his eyes expressed
a softness representing no prevision of such laurels, but which
testified none the less to Verena's influence. "And what you want is
that I shouldn't undeceive her?"

"Well, I don't want you to be hypocritical--if you shouldn't take our
side; but I do think that it would be sweet if the dear old thing could
just cling to her illusion. She won't live so very long, probably; she
told me the other day she was ready for her final rest; so it wouldn't
interfere much with your freedom. She feels quite romantic about
it--your being a Southerner and all, and not naturally in sympathy with
Boston ideas, and your meeting her that way in the street and making
yourself known to her. She won't believe but what I shall move you."

"Don't fear, Miss Tarrant, she shall be satisfied," Ransom said, with a
laugh which he could see she but partially understood. He was prevented
from making his meaning more clear by the return of Mr. Burrage,
bringing not only Verena's glass of water but a smooth-faced, rosy,
smiling old gentleman, who had a velvet waistcoat, and thin white hair,
brushed effectively, and whom he introduced to Verena under a name which
Ransom recognised as that