yet tasted the bitterness of
disappointment, clinging to life as to all, was fairly puzzled to
understand the morbid sadness of the Poet's spirit. "I'm sorry you feel
that way, Gray," he said. "But at any rate promise me you won't do
anything desperate without talking to me."

"I'll do that air, Mr. Charlton," and the two shook hands again.

CHAPTER XIX.

STANDING GUARD IN VAIN.

It was Isabel Marlay that sought Albert again. Her practical intellect,
bothered with no visions, dazed with no theories, embarrassed by no broad
philanthropies, was full of resource, and equally full, if not of
general, at least of a specific benevolence that forgot mankind in its
kindness to the individual.

Albert saw plainly enough that he could not keep Katy in her present
state of feeling. He saw how she would inevitably slip through his
fingers. But what to do he knew not. So, like most men of earnest and
half-visionary spirit, he did nothing. Unbeliever in Providence that he
was, he waited in the belief that something must happen to help him out
of the difficulty. Isa, believer that she was, set herself to be her own
Providence.

Albert had been spending an evening with Miss Minorkey. He spent nearly
all his evenings with Miss Minorkey. He came home, and stood a minute, as
was his wont, looking at the prairie landscape. A rolling prairie is like
a mountain, in that it perpetually changes its appearance; it is
delicately susceptible to all manner of atmospheric effects. It lay
before him in the dim moonlight, indefinite; a succession of undulations
running one into the other, not to be counted nor measured. All accurate
notions of topography were lost; there was only landscape, dim,
undeveloped, suggestive of infinitude. Standing thus in the happiness of
loving and being loved, the soft indefiniteness of the landscape and the
incessant hum of the field-crickets and katydids, sounds which came out
of the everywhere, soothed Charlton like the song of a troubadour.

"Mr. Charlton!"

Like one awaking from a dream, Albert saw Isa Marlay, her hand resting
against one of the posts which supported the piazza-roof, looking even
more perfect and picturesque than ever in the haziness of the moonlight.
Figure, dress, and voice were each full of grace and sweetness, and if
the face was not exactly beautiful, it was at least charming and full of
a subtle magnetism. (Magnetism! happy word, with which we cover the
weakness of our thou