ond time and went
to Europe with her husband. Miriam came to live with us while they
were away. Upon their return she was herself to be married.

"I had never seen Miriam before. Her arrival was unexpected, and I was
absent from home when she came. I returned in the evening, and when I
saw her first she was standing under the chandelier in the drawing
room. Talk about spirits! For five seconds I thought I had seen one.

"Miriam was a beauty. I had known that before, though I think I
hardly expected to see such wonderful loveliness. She was tall and
extremely graceful, dark--at least her hair was dark, but her skin was
wonderfully fair and clear. Her hair was gathered away from her face,
and she had a high, pure, white forehead, and the straightest, finest,
blackest brows. Her face was oval, with very large and dark eyes.

"I soon realized that Miriam was in some mysterious fashion different
from other people. I think everyone who met her felt the same way. Yet
it was a feeling hard to define. For my own part I simply felt as if
she belonged to another world, and that part of the time she--her
soul, you know--was back there again.

"You must not suppose that Miriam was a disagreeable person to have in
the house. On the contrary, it was the very reverse. Everybody liked
her. She was one of the sweetest, most winsome girls I ever knew, and
I soon grew to love her dearly. As for what Dick called her 'little
queernesses'--well, we got used to them in time.

"Miriam was engaged, as I have told you, to a young Harvard man named
Sidney Claxton. I knew she loved him very deeply. When she showed me
his photograph, I liked his appearance and said so. Then I made some
teasing remark about her love-letters--just for a joke, you know.
Miriam looked at me with an odd little smile and said quickly:

"'Sidney and I never write to each other.'

"'Why, Miriam!' I exclaimed in astonishment. 'Do you mean to tell me
you never hear from him at all?'

"'No, I did not say that. I hear from him every day--every hour. We
do not need to write letters. There are better means of communication
between two souls that are in perfect accord with each other.'

"'Miriam, you uncanny creature, what do you mean?' I asked.

"But Miriam only gave another queer smile and made no answer at all.
Whatever her beliefs or theories were, she would never discuss them.

"She had a habit of dropping into abstracted reveries at any time or
place. No matter w