g man. Yet it was
natural, too, for the child had nigh died of horror, though the courage
of the Castles had held her head high in the presence of the inevitable.
And now suddenly into her gray and hopeless future, peopled by the
phantoms of an old man, stepped a living, smiling young fellow, with
gentle manners and honest speech, and a quick courtesy which there was
no mistaking.

She had no mother--nobody to talk to--so she had long ago made a
confidante of her own reflection in the looking-glass. And to the mirror
she now went, meeting the reflected eyes shyly, yet smiling with
friendly sympathy:

"Silly! to frighten yourself! It is all over now. He's young and tall
and sunburned. I don't think he knows a great deal--but don't be
frightened, he is not a bit dreadful, ... only ... it is a pity, ... but
I suppose he was in love with me, ... and, after all, it doesn't matter,
... only I am ... sorry ... for him.... If he had only cared for a girl
who could love him!... I don't suppose I could, ... ever!... But I will
be very kind to him, ... to make up."

III

She saw him every day; she dined at the club table now.

Miss Garcide's hay-fever increased with the ripening summer, and she lay
in her room with all the windows closed, sneezing and reading Anthony
Trollope.

When Miss Castle told her that Mr. Crawford was a guest at the club,
Miss Garcide wept over her for an hour.

"I feel like weeping, too," said Miss Castle, tremulously--"but not over
myself."

"Dot over hib?" inquired Miss Garcide.

"Yes, over him. He ought to marry a girl who could fall in love with
him."

Meanwhile Crawford was dining every evening with her at the great club
table, telling her of the day's sport, and how a black bear had come
splashing across the shallows within a few rods of where he stood
fishing, and how the deer had increased, and were even nibbling the
succulent green stalks in the kitchen garden after nightfall.

During the day she found herself looking forward to his return and his
jolly, spirited stories, always gay and humorous, and never tiresome,
technical, nor conceited, although for three years he had held the club
cup for the best fish taken on Sagamore water.

She took sun-baths in her hammock; she read novels; she spent hours in
reverie, blue eyes skyward, arms under her head, swayed in her hammock
by the delicious winds of a perfect June.

All her composure and common-sense had returned. She began to e