lly answered briefly out of regard for the chasm
between: how contract the name and fame of Mr. Canning to fit this
shabby little "parlor"? Hen was thin, colorless, and sweet-faced, and
was known in the family (for the Cooneys, strange to say, knew of
enormous individual differences among themselves) as the most thoughtful
and considerate of the children, and as alone possessing the real Ambler
nose. She rather suggested some slender pale flower, made to look at its
slenderest and palest beside her cousin's rich blossom. Still, Hen was
accounted a fine stenographer: they paid her sixty dollars a month at
the bookstore, where she earned double at least.

For five minutes the talk between these two girls, of about the same age
and blood but, it seemed, almost without a point of contact, was
considerably perfunctory. Then, by an odd chance and in the wink of an
eye, it took on a very distinct interest. Carlisle inquired if Hen had
ever heard of a man named V. Vivian, said to be a nephew of Mr. Beirne;
and Hen, with a little exclamation, and a certain quickening of
countenance, replied that she had been raised with him. Moreover, she
referred to him as V.V....

Though the Cooneys knew everybody, as well as everything, and though
Carlisle had thought before now of putting an inquiry to Hen or Chas in
this particular direction, the manner of her cousin's reply was a
decided surprise to her, and somehow a disagreeable surprise.

"Oh! Really?" said she, rather coldly. "I understood--some one told
me--that the man had just come here to live."

"He's just come _back_," explained Hen, with interest. "Why, he was born
here, Cally, three doors from where we used to live down on Third
Street--remember? Well, Dr. Vivian lived right there till he was sixteen
or seventeen--"

"Why do you call him Dr. Vivian?"

"Well, that's what he is, you see. He's a doctor--medical man."

"He doesn't look in the least like a medical man to me," said Carlisle,
as if that ought to settle something.

"Oh! You know him, then?"

"I have spoken to him," replied Carlisle, her gaze full on Hen's face.
"You see a great deal of him, I suppose?"

"No, we don't," said Hen, with an odd air, suggestive of regret. "He
keeps so terribly busy. Besides being sort of a missionary doctor, he's
always working on dozens of grand schemes of one sort or another. His
latest is to raise about a million dollars and buy the Dabney House for
a Settlement! How's that f