iscussed with great freedom. Sam Rice was closely questioned, but
proved reticent and non-committal. The landlord was besieged with
inquiries--the landlady, too--and all without anybody being made much
the wiser. There was the waybill, and there was the lady herself; put
that and that together, and make what you could of it.

Mrs. Dolly Page did not seem discomposed in the least by the evident
interest she inspired. With her black curls smoothly brushed, her black
robes immaculately neat, with a pretty color in her round cheeks, and a
quietly absorbed expression in her whole bearing, she endured the
concentrated gaze of fifty pairs of eyes during the whole of dinner,
without so much as one awkward movement, or the dropping of a fork or
teaspoon. So it was plain that the curious would be compelled to await
Mrs. Page's own time for developments.

But developments did not seem likely to come overwhelmingly. Mrs. Page
made a fast friend of the landlady of the Silver Brick, by means of
little household arts peculiarly her own, and, before a fortnight was
gone, had become as indispensable to all the boarders as she was to Mrs.
Shaughnessy herself. If she had a history, she kept it carefully from
curious ears. Mrs. Shaughnessy was evidently satisfied, and quite
challenged criticism of her favorite. Indeed, there was nothing to
criticise. It was generally understood that she was a widow, who had to
get on in the world as best she could, and thus the public sympathy was
secured, and an embargo laid upon gossip. To be sure, there were certain
men in Lucky-dog, of a class which has its representatives everywhere,
who regarded all unappropriated women, especially pretty women, very
much as the hunter regards game, and the more difficult the approach,
the more exciting the chase. But these moral Nimrods had not half the
chance with self-possessed Mrs. Dolly Page that they would have had with
a different style of woman. The grosser sort got a sudden _conge_; and
with the more refined sportsmen she coquetted just enough to show them
that two could play at a game of "make-believe," and then sent them off
with a lofty scorn edifying to behold--to the mingled admiration and
amusement of Mrs. Shaughnessy.

The only affair which seemed to have a kernel of seriousness in it, was
that of Mr. Samuel Rice. Regularly, when the stage was in, on Sam's
night, he paid his respects to Mrs. Page. And Mrs. Page always received
him with a graceful fr