ne
to the Hermitage. But no! That was very sure to be revolting. If the
evening were to afford entertainment, it must be found in watching this
healthy and unhampered being who, just as certain fishes color the water
around them, seemed to affect the air in such a way that, coming near
enough, you were forced to like her, without ceasing to think her the
most impossible person that had ever found her way into cultivated
society.

The carriage-wheels crunched gravel; the horses' hoofs rang on the
pavement of a columned portico; the door was opened by a man in blue
livery.

Entering the wide hall, they faced an ample double staircase, between
the converging flights of which stood, closed, a great stately
white-and-gold door.

Gerald, as bidden, followed the ladies up the stairs to the cozier
sitting-room, where a fire, they hoped, had been kept up. In the
beginning dimness of an early twilight he first saw the big red flowers
and green, green leaves. He was left a moment alone while the ladies
took off their hats, and he sent his eyes traveling around him, prepared
really for something worse than they found, though the pictures on the
wall called from him the gesture of trying to sweep away an unpleasant
dream.

Aurora reappeared from her room in a business-like white apron.

"Now I'm going down to make the biscuit. Oh, no trouble. No trouble at
all. I want them myself. I'm homesick for some food that tastes like
home. Estelle will entertain you while I'm gone. I sha'n't be but a
minute."

Estelle sat in a low arm-chair close to the fire.

Gerald, to whom it did not seem cold enough for a fire, took a seat
nearer the windows, whence he could watch the fading sunset-end beyond
garden and street, river and hill.

He would have cared less, no doubt, to make himself not too dull company
for this stranger, had he known that there, before that fireplace, a few
days before, she had been placed in possession of the most intimate
facts of his humiliating destiny. Unsuspecting, in a mood rather more
amiable than usual, he asked, by way of entering into conversation,
whether she and her friend were not New-Englanders. It established the
sense of a bond, however light, to find that they and he were almost
townsmen. He had been born in Boston, or, at least, near it. His parents
had owned a house in Charlestown, where he had lived till he was ten
years old. They talked for a while of Boston.

He had heard a singular thing,