and when not called to it by any
necessity. But this emancipation has taken time--plenty of it. It is
directly at variance with all the principles of the country and creed in
which I was brought up."

"You have good health, Mr. Winthrop?" asked Mrs. Thorne, in a tone which
was prepared to turn with equal appreciation towards sympathy if he
were, and congratulation if he were not, the possessor of the lungs
which classify a person, and give him an occupation for life.

"Do I look delicate?"

"On the contrary, you look remarkably well," answered his hostess, sure
of her ground here, since even an invalid likes to be congratulated upon
an appearance of health: not only is it more agreeable in itself, but it
gives him the opportunity to explain (and at some length) that all is
illusory merely, a semblance; an adjustment of the balances between
resignation and heroism which everybody should admire. "Yes," Mrs.
Thorne went on, with a critical air which seemed to say, as she looked
at him, that her opinions were founded upon unprejudiced scrutiny,
"wonderfully well, indeed--does he not, Garda?"

"Mr. Winthrop looks well; I don't know that it is a wonder," replied
Edgarda Thorne, in her soft voice. "He has been everywhere, and seen
everything," she added, turning her eyes towards him for a moment--eyes
in which he read envy, but envy impersonal, concerning itself more with
his travels, his knowledge of many places, his probable adventures, than
with himself.

"Mr. Winthrop is accustomed to a largeness of opportunity," remarked
Mrs. Thorne; "but it is his natural atmosphere." She paused, coughed
slightly, and then added, "He does not come into the ports he enters
with banners flying, with rockets and cannon, and a brass band at bow
and stern."

"You describe an excursion steamer on the Fourth of July," said
Winthrop.

"Precisely. One or two of the persons who have visited Gracias-a-Dios
lately have seemed to us not unlike that," answered the lady.

Mrs. Thorne had a delicate little voice, pitched on rather a high key,
but so slender in volume that, like the pure small note of a little
bird, it did not offend. Her pronunciation was very distinct and
accurate--that is, accurate according to the spelling; they knew no
other methods in the conscientious country school where she had received
her education. Mrs. Thorne pronounced her _t_ in "often," her _l_ in
"almond," her "again" rhymed with "plain."

"Did you mean that