ut on the whole it's rather comforting."

"How interesting--to have a book being written in the house! Is it fact
or fiction, do you know?"

"I don't imagine it's fiction. He has piles of reference books, and a
great deal of mail, and--somehow--he doesn't look as if he wrote
fiction."

Yet, as Mr. Jefferson came into the dining-room that night, Georgiana
found herself wondering why she should think he did not look as if he
would write fiction--not foolish fiction, certainly, but sensible
fiction, made possible by keen observation and set off by a capacity for
quiet--possibly even biting--humour. He looked at least as if he might
write essays, thoughtful, clever essays, full of searching analyses of
his fellow human creatures, of their oddities, their hopes, their
aspirations, their sins, and their virtues. Or--was he, after all,
writing on scientific matters--facts, pure and simple; inferences,
deductions, conclusions from facts? She wondered, more than she had yet
done, as to the nature of his work.

"I think Mr. Jefferson is delightful," said Jeannette cordially, beside
the living-room fire, when supper was over, and the boarder, after
lingering in the living-room doorway for a minute, but declining on the
score of work Mr. Warne's invitation to enter, had gone his way
upstairs. On this first night Georgiana had let the disordered dining
table wait, and had accompanied the others to the fireside as if she had
a dozen servants to attend to her household affairs. "After this, she
won't notice so much," she had argued with herself. "I don't want to
have her offering to help. I don't mean to do a thing differently on her
account, but I can't help--well, _shying_ at the dishes the very first
minute after supper!"

"A man of fine intellect," Father Davy responded to his niece's
observation, "and accustomed to think worthy thoughts. One can see that
at once. It is a real pleasure to have him here. It is good for us, too.
Georgiana and I were growing narrow before he came. He has broadened us;
we get his point of view on subjects that we thought had been disposed
of for all time--and find them not disposed of at all."

Before the moment arrived when, in Georgiana's mind, the waiting work in
the kitchen must be done without further postponement, the front door
was besieged by James Stuart. A basket of late winter apples in hand, he
came in, looking the image of vigorous youth, his well-set-up figure
showing its best in