"Not quite," Burgess replied.

"Listen to him some day when he is. He is another man then. But," she
added, "I know you mean well."

In spite of her courage her eyes were full of tears, and for the first
time in his sheltered pleasant life the real spirit of sympathy woke in
the soul of Vincent Burgess.

"You are a brave, good girl, Dennie. If I can ever serve you in any way,
it will be a privilege to me to do it."

Ten minutes after they had left the library Trench, who had been
stationary in the north alcove, slowly came to life. He had been posing
as a statue, Winged Victory with a head on, he declared afterward to Vic
Burleigh, to whom he told the whole story.

"Let me sing my swan song," he declared. "Then me for Lagonda's
whirlpool. I'm not fit to live in a decent community, a blithering idiot
and rascally villain, who lies in wait to hear and see like a fool.
I thought Dennie knew I was there and would be in to dust me out in
a minute. And when it was too late I turned to a pillar of salt and
waited. But I believe I'll change my mind, after all. I'll live; and if
Professor Burgess, A.B. of Cambridge-by-the-bean-patch, dares to make
love to Dennie Saxon--on the side--he'll go head foremost into the
whirlpool to feed Lagonda's rapacious spirit. I've said it."

CHAPTER VIII. LOSS, OR GAIN?

_We cannot make bargains for blisses,
Nor catch them like fishes in nets,
And sometimes the thing our life misses
Helps more than the thing which it gets_.
--CARY

ELINOR WREAM spent the holidays in the East and was two weeks late
in entering school again. Then her Uncle Lloyd tightened the rules,
exacting full measure for lost time, until she bewailed to her girl
friends that she had no opportunity even to make fudge or wash her hair.

"Were you sorry to come back, then, Norrie?" her uncle asked one evening
when they were alone in their library, and Elinor was lamenting her hard
lot.

"No, I want to be with you, Uncle Lloyd."

She was sitting on the arm of his morris chair, softly stroking his
heavy hair away from his forehead.

"Looks like it, the way you hurried back," Dr. Fenneben said, smiling.

"But Uncle Joshua is n't well, although, to be honest, he didn't seem
a bit anxious to have me stay. He's so wrapped up in Sanscrit he has no
time to live in the present. Why didn't he ever marry?"

"You have just said why," her uncle answered her.

"Why did n't you eve