f the future of the human race. He always listened
in sympathetic silence while she unfolded to him her often childishly
daring schemes for the amelioration of suffering and the righting of
social wrongs; and when she had finished, and he met the earnest appeal
of her dark eye, there would often be a pause, during which each, with
a half unconscious lapse from the impersonal, would feel more keenly the
joy of this new and delicious mental companionship. And when at length
he answered, sometimes gently refuting and sometimes assenting to her
proposition, it was always with a slow, deliberate earnestness, as if
he felt but her deep sincerity, and forgot for the moment her sex, her
youth, and her inexperience. It was just this kind of fellowship for
which she had hungered so long, and her heart went out with a great
gratitude toward this strong and generous man, who was willing to
recognize her humanity, and to respond with an ever-ready frankness,
unmixed with petty suspicions and second thoughts, to the eager needs of
her half-starved nature. It is quite characteristic, too, of the type of
womanhood which Augusta represents (and with which this broad continent
of ours abounds), that, with her habitual disregard of appearances, she
would have scorned the notion that their intercourse had any ultimate
end beyond that of mutual pleasure and instruction.

It was early in the morning in the third week of Strand's stay at
the Parsonage. A heavy dew had fallen during the night, and each tiny
grass-blade glistened in the sun, bending under the weight of its liquid
diamond. The birds were improvising a miniature symphony in the
birches at the end of the garden; the song-thrush warbled with a sweet
melancholy his long-drawn contralto notes; the lark, like a prima donna,
hovering conspicuously in mid air, poured forth her joyous soprano solo;
and the robin, quite unmindful of the tempo, filled out the pauses with
his thoughtless staccato chirp. Augusta, who was herself the early bird
of the pastor's family, had paid a visit to the little bath-house
down at the brook, and was now hurrying homeward, her heavy black hair
confined in a delicate muslin hood, and her lithe form hastily wrapped
in a loose morning gown. She had paused for a moment under the birches
to listen to the song of the lark, when suddenly a low, half articulate
sound, very unlike the voice of a bird, arrested her attention; she
raised her eyes, and saw Strand sittin