it, he sent it her; in one of her
letters she casually betrayed that she sang contralto in the choir, and
then he sent her some new songs, which he had heard in the theatre, and
which he had informed himself from a friend were contralto. He was
always tending to an expression of the feeling which swayed him; but on
her part there was no sentiment. Only in the fact that she was willing
to continue this exchange of letters with a man personally unknown to
her did she betray that romantic tradition which underlies all our young
life, and in those unused to the world tempts to things blameless in
themselves, but of the sort shunned by the worldlier wise. There was no
great wisdom of any kind in Miss Simpson's letters; but Langbourne did
not miss it; he was content with her mere words, as they related the
little events of her simple daily life. These repeated themselves from
the page in the tones of her voice and filled him with a passionate
intoxication.

Towards spring he had his photograph taken, for no reason that he could
have given; but since it was done he sent one to his mother in Vermont,
and then he wrote his name on another, and sent it to Miss Simpson in
New Hampshire. He hoped, of course, that she would return a photograph
of herself; but she merely acknowledged his with some dry playfulness.
Then, after disappointing him so long that he ceased to expect anything,
she enclosed a picture. The face was so far averted that Langbourne
could get nothing but the curve of a longish cheek, the point of a nose,
the segment of a crescent eyebrow. The girl said that as they should
probably never meet, it was not necessary he should know her when he saw
her; she explained that she was looking away because she had been
attracted by something on the other side of the photograph gallery just
at the moment the artist took the cap off the tube of his camera, and
she could not turn back without breaking the plate.

Langbourne replied that he was going up to Springfield on business the
first week in May, and that he thought he might push on as far north as
Upper Ashton Falls. To this there came no rejoinder whatever, but he did
not lose courage. It was now the end of April, and he could bear to wait
for a further verification of his ideal; the photograph had confirmed
him in its evasive fashion at every point of his conjecture concerning
her. It was the face he had imagined her having, or so he now imagined,
and it was just such