ay. He
looked askance and discontentedly at Graydon during dinner in the
evening. When they were alone he was fidgety and rather curt in his
remarks. At last he burst out, "Confound it! What has happened between
you and Madge?"

"She has refused me, that's all," was the quiet reply.

Mr. Muir gave a low whistle.

"Oh, I understood you the other evening," resumed Graydon. "The
phenomenal penetration on which you so pride yourself is at fault for
once."

The banker was so nonplused that he permitted his cigar to go out, but
he soon reached the conclusion, "He has bungled." "Well," he asked at
last, "what do you propose to do?"

"To be to her all that she will ever permit, and die a bachelor for
her sake if I must."

Mr. Muir lighted his Havana again and puffed in silence for a while,
then said, "I like that. Your purpose is clearly defined. In business
and everything else there is solid comfort in knowing what you can
depend upon."

Madge's replies to Graydon's letters were scarcely more than notes,
but they were breezy little affairs, fragrant with the breath of the
mountains, and had an excellent tonic effect in the hot city. They
usually contained a description of what she had seen or of some
locality visited. On one occasion she wrote:

"Late in the afternoon there had been a shower, not gentle and
pattering, but one of those frightful, passionate outbursts which are
not infrequent in these mountains. The wind appeared to drive black
masses of clouds from all directions save one, which, meeting over the
height occupied by the hotel, discharged torrents of rain. At last
the wind left the writhing trees in peace, and carried the deeply
shadowing cloud away beyond the hills. The sun broke forth, and
nature began some magic work. Calling the mist fairies to her aid,
she gathered from every ravine and clove delicate airy clouds, which
formed a large and rapidly increasing mass of vapor. Soon the plain
below--the wide Hudson valley--was entirely shut out, as though a
great white curtain had dropped from the sky to the mountain's base.
Just then the setting sun, which had been temporarily obscured, shone
forth in glorious brightness, casting on the beautiful cloud-curtain
the dark, clearly defined shadow of the mountain-top, with its crown
of buildings, even the towers and turrets showing with startling
distinctness. It was like a mammoth, well-cut cameo, or a gigantic
magic lantern effect, with the sun as a calc