achment, and that the unknown woman
was to blame. This second phase--which hovered between compassion and
resentment--suddenly changed to the latter--the third phase of her
feelings. Miss Keene became convinced that Mr. Hurlstone had a settled
aversion to HERSELF. Why and wherefore, she did not attempt to reason,
yet she was satisfied that from the first he disliked her. His studious
reserve on the Excelsior, compared with the attentions of the others,
ought then to have convinced her of the fact; and there was no doubt
now that his present discontent could be traced to the unfortunate
circumstances that brought them together. Having given herself up to
that idea, she vacillated between a strong impulse to inform him that
she knew his real feelings and an equally strong instinct to avoid him
hereafter entirely. The result was a feeble compromise. On the ground
that Mr. Hurlstone could "scarcely be expected to admire her inferior
performances," she declined to invite him with Father Esteban to listen
to her pupils. Father Esteban took a huge pinch of snuff, examined
Miss Keene attentively, and smiled a sad smile. The next day he
begged Hurlstone to take a volume of old music to Miss Keene with his
compliments. Hurlstone did so, and for some reason exerted himself to be
agreeable. As he made no allusion to her rudeness, she presumed he did
not know of it, and speedily forgot it herself. When he suggested a
return visit to the boy choir, with whom he occasionally practiced, she
blushed and feared she had scarcely the time. But she came with Mrs.
Markham, some consciousness, and a visible color!

And then, almost without her knowing how or why, and entirely unexpected
and unheralded, came a day so strangely and unconsciously happy, so
innocently sweet and joyous, that it seemed as if all the other days
of her exile had only gone before to create it, and as if it--and it
alone--were a sufficient reason for her being there. A day full of
gentle intimations, laughing suggestions, childlike surprises and
awakenings; a day delicious for the very incompleteness of its vague
happiness. And this remarkable day was simply marked in Mrs. Markham's
diary as follows:--"Went with E. to Indian village; met Padre and J. H.
J. H. actually left shell and crawled on beach with E. E. chatty."

The day itself had been singularly quiet and gracious, even for that
rare climate of balmy days and recuperating nights. At times the slight
breath of