ersonal. There was
nothing in the world so personal as Mrs. Luna; her sister could have
hated her for it if she had not forbidden herself this emotion as
directed to individuals. Basil Ransom was a young man of first-rate
intelligence, but conscious of the narrow range, as yet, of his
experience. He was on his guard against generalisations which might be
hasty; but he had arrived at two or three that were of value to a
gentleman lately admitted to the New York bar and looking out for
clients. One of them was to the effect that the simplest division it is
possible to make of the human race is into the people who take things
hard and the people who take them easy. He perceived very quickly that
Miss Chancellor belonged to the former class. This was written so
intensely in her delicate face that he felt an unformulated pity for her
before they had exchanged twenty words. He himself, by nature, took
things easy; if he had put on the screw of late, it was after reflexion,
and because circumstances pressed him close. But this pale girl, with
her light-green eyes, her pointed features and nervous manner, was
visibly morbid; it was as plain as day that she was morbid. Poor Ransom
announced this fact to himself as if he had made a great discovery; but
in reality he had never been so "Boeotian" as at that moment. It proved
nothing of any importance, with regard to Miss Chancellor, to say that
she was morbid; any sufficient account of her would lie very much to the
rear of that. Why was she morbid, and why was her morbidness typical?
Ransom might have exulted if he had gone back far enough to explain that
mystery. The women he had hitherto known had been mainly of his own soft
clime, and it was not often they exhibited the tendency he detected (and
cursorily deplored) in Mrs. Luna's sister. That was the way he liked
them--not to think too much, not to feel any responsibility for the
government of the world, such as he was sure Miss Chancellor felt. If
they would only be private and passive, and have no feeling but for
that, and leave publicity to the sex of tougher hide! Ransom was pleased
with the vision of that remedy; it must be repeated that he was very
provincial.

These considerations were not present to him as definitely as I have
written them here; they were summed up in the vague compassion which his
cousin's figure excited in his mind, and which was yet accompanied with
a sensible reluctance to know her better, obvious a