appointed; he saw he was going to be taken away, and,
before he could suppress it, an exclamation burst from his lips--the
first exclamation he could think of that would perhaps check his
cousin's retreat: "Ah, Miss Olive, are you going to give up Mrs.
Farrinder?"

At this Miss Olive looked at him, showed him an extraordinary face, a
face he scarcely understood or even recognised. It was portentously
grave, the eyes were enlarged, there was a red spot in each of the
cheeks, and as directed to him, a quick, piercing question, a kind of
leaping challenge, in the whole expression. He could only answer this
sudden gleam with a stare, and wonder afresh what trick his Northern
kinswoman was destined to play him. Impressed too? He should think he
had been! Mrs. Farrinder, who was decidedly a woman of the world, came
to his assistance, or to Miss Chancellor's, and said she hoped very much
Olive wouldn't stay--she felt these things too much. "If you stay, I
won't speak," she added; "I should upset you altogether." And then she
continued, tenderly, for so preponderantly intellectual a nature: "When
women feel as you do, how can I doubt that we shall come out all right?"

"Oh, we shall come out all right, I guess," murmured Miss Birdseye.

"But you must remember Beacon Street," Mrs. Farrinder subjoined. "You
must take advantage of your position--you must wake up the Back Bay!"

"I'm sick of the Back Bay!" said Olive fiercely; and she passed to the
door with Miss Birdseye, bidding good-bye to no one. She was so agitated
that, evidently, she could not trust herself, and there was nothing for
Ransom but to follow. At the door of the room, however, he was checked
by a sudden pause on the part of the two ladies: Olive stopped and stood
there hesitating. She looked round the room and spied out Verena, where
she sat with her mother, the centre of a gratified group; then, throwing
back her head with an air of decision, she crossed over to her. Ransom
said to himself that now, perhaps, was his chance, and he quickly
accompanied Miss Chancellor. The little knot of reformers watched her as
she arrived; their faces expressed a suspicion of her social importance,
mingled with conscientious scruples as to whether it were right to
recognise it. Verena Tarrant saw that she was the object of this
manifestation, and she got up to meet the lady whose approach was so
full of point. Ransom perceived, however, or thought he perceived, that
she recog