sequences whose beginnings are lost in
obscurity which lead to events. The principal of the Normal School in
Westbridge, which Evelyn attended and in which Maria taught, had been
a certain Professor Lane. If he had not gone to Boston one morning
when the weather was unusually sultry for the season, and if an east
wind had not come up, causing him, being thinly clad, to take cold,
which cold meant the beginning of a rapid consumption which hurried
him off to Colorado, and a year later to death; if these east winds
had not made it impossible for Wollaston Lee's mother, now widowed,
to live with him in the college town where he had been stationed, a
great deal which happened might not have come to pass at all. It was
"the wind which bloweth where it listeth, and no man knoweth whence
it cometh and whither it goeth," which precipitated the small tragedy
of a human life.

The Saturday before the fall term commenced, Evelyn came home from
Westbridge, where she had been for some shopping, and she had a piece
of news. She did not wait to remove her hat, but stood before Maria
and her aunt, who were sewing in the sitting-room, with the roses
nestling against the soft flying tendrils of her black hair. It was
still so warm that she wore her summer hat.

"What do you think!" said she. "I have such a piece of news!"

"What is it, dear?" asked Maria. Aunt Maria looked up curiously.

"Why, Professor Lane has had to give up. He starts for Colorado
Monday. He kept hoping he could stay here, but he went to a
specialist, who told him he could not live six months in this
climate, so he is starting right off. And we are to have a new
principal."

"Who is he?" asked Maria. She felt herself trembling, for no reason
that she could define.

"Addie Hemingway says he is a handsome young man. He has been a
professor in some college, but his mother lives with him, and the
climate didn't agree with her, and so he had resigned and was out of
a position, and they have sent right away for him, and he is coming.
In fact, Addie says she thinks he has come, and that he and his
mother are at Mrs. Land's boarding-house; but they are going to keep
house. Addie says she has heard he is a young man and very handsome."

"What is his name?" asked Maria, faintly.

Evelyn looked at her and laughed. "The funniest thing about it all
is," said she, "that he comes originally from Edgham, and you must
have known him, Maria. I don't remember him at all, but