crossed the
square, but when they reached home they instinctively drew together over
the study fire. There was a long silence even then, broken at last by
Charles Osmond.

"Well, my son?" he said.

"I cannot see how I can be of the least use to her," said Brian,
abruptly, as if his father had been following the whole of his train of
thought, which, indeed, to a certain extent, he had.

"Was this afternoon your first meeting?"

"Our first speaking. I have seen her many times, but only today realized
what she is."

"Well, your little Undine is very bewitching, and much more than
bewitching, true to the core and loyal and loving. If only the hardness
of her life does not embitter her, I think she will make a grand woman."

"Tell me what you did this afternoon," said Brian; "you must have been
some time with them."

Charles Osmond told him all that had passed; then continued:

"She is, as I said, a fascinating, bright little Undine, inclined to be
willful, I should fancy, and with a sort of warmth and quickness about
her whole character, in many ways still a child, and yet in others
strangely old for her years; on the whole I should say as fair a
specimen of the purely natural being as you would often meet with. The
spiritual part of her is, I fancy, asleep."

"No, I fancy tonight has made it stir for the first time," said Brian,
and he told his father a little of what had passed between himself and
Erica.

"And the Longfellow was, I suppose, from you," said Charles Osmond. "I
wish you could have seen her delight over it. Words absolutely failed
her. I don't think any one else noticed it, but, her own vocabulary
coming to an end, she turned to ours, it was 'What HEAVENLY person can
have sent me this?'"

Brian smiled, but sighed too.

"One talks of the spiritual side remaining untouched," he said, "yet how
is it ever to be otherwise than chained and fettered, while such men
as that Randolph are recognized as the champions of our cause, while
injustice and unkindness meet her at every turn, while it is something
rare and extraordinary for a Christian to speak a kind word to her. If
today she has first realized that Christians need not necessarily behave
as brutes, I have realized a little what life is from her point of
view."

"Then, realizing that perhaps you may help her, perhaps another chapter
of the old legend may come true, and you may be the means of waking the
spirit in your Undine."

"I? Oh, no!