s. Muir, determined to free her mind.
"If she is anything to you, or wishes to be, her performances are
as unique as those of Madge, although in a different style. We Alden
girls were not brought up in that way. Pardon me; I know it's your
affair, but you are my brother, and have been a good one, too. I can't
wonder that Henry dislikes her. Well, well, I see you are getting
nettled, and I won't say anything more, but tell you about Madge. It
has been an awfully hot day, you know, and I did not order a carriage
till five. Madge was restless, and had sighed for a gallop more
than once, so I proposed to do the best for her I could. As we were
starting for our drive Dr. Sommers appeared, and I asked him to go
with us.

"'I will,' he said, 'if you will take me to see one of my
patients--one that will make Miss Alden contented till she has some
imaginary trouble of her own. My horse is nearly used up from the long
drive I've had in the heat.'

"'Oh, do take me to see some one in trouble!' exclaimed Madge.

"'Yes,' replied the doctor, laughing, 'that will be a novelty. To
see you young ladies dancing and promenading, one would think you had
never heard of trouble.'

"After a lovely drive through a wild valley we came to a little gray
farmhouse, innocent of paint since the memory of man. The mountain
rose steeply behind it with overhanging rocks, cropping out through
the forest here and there. An orchard shaded the dwelling, and beyond
the narrow roadway in front brawled a trout-stream. To the eastward
were rough, stony fields, that sloped up, at what seemed an angle of
forty-five degrees, to other wooded mountains. It was the roughest,
wildest-looking place I ever saw. How strange and lonely it must look
now in the moonlight, with not another dwelling in sight!"

"Too lonely for Madge to be there," exclaimed Graydon. "I don't like
it, and I should not have expected such imprudence from you, Mary."

"Oh, Madge is safe enough! Wait till you know all. Well, the farmer
and his wife were at their early supper when we arrived. I went in
with Madge and the doctor, for I wanted to see how such people lived,
and also thought I could do something for them. I hadn't been in the
room five minutes, however, before I gave up all thought of offering
assistance. The people were plainly and even poorly dressed. The man
was in his shirt-sleeves, but he put on his coat immediately. He had a
kind of natural, quiet dignity and a subdued man