her unemployed hour would I
yield to the selfish demands of my forthcoming job.

The next day was one of November drizzle, the house confinement of
which, my adroit brother declared, could only be mitigated by my
presence in the sitting-room until the improved state of the weather
allowed their escape from it.

I was in the habit of appropriating such weather to my piano, and I
had not touched it for a month. Whether Mr. Tennent Tremont's nerves
were in a sound state or not, I was determined to practice until
twelve. But when he came in from the library and assisted me in
opening the instrument, I was obliged to ask him what he would have.
They were my first direct words to him, our three weeks' guest.

"Oh, 'Summer Night' is a favorite," he said.

I gave him the song, and then executed the long variations; then,
dropping my tired hands in my lap, inquired whether he liked vocal or
instrumental best.

"Not any more of either, just now, thanking you kindly for what you
have given me," he said. "Have you ever been a confidante, Miss ----?"

"That is my vocation, Mr. Tremont," I replied, grasping my bag.

"Which? your embroidery or--"

"Both combined," I tried to say pleasantly, "as on this occasion. I am
at Mr. Tremont's service;" and I threaded my tapestry-needle.

Without a prefatory word he began: "Years before your young heart was
awakened to 'the sweetest joy, the wildest woe,' I loved."

"And single yet!" I exclaimed as I let my hands drop and glanced up
at his brown hair, to see if all those years had left their silver
footprints there.

"And single yet," he repeated slowly, "and still worshiping at the
same shrine; and to no other will I ever bow until this head is
silvered o'er, and this strong arm palsied with the infirmities of
age--if a long life is indeed to be mine."

His ardor startled me, but I managed to stitch away composedly, and he
went on:

"I know it is in the highest degree selfish to inflict on you a
recital of what may not interest you; but I have tried to keep my
secret buried from human eyes, from all but _hers_, and you are now
the only being on earth to whom I have ever _said_, 'I love.' As
intimate as I have been with your brother, if he knows it, it is by
his penetration, for no word of acknowledgment has ever passed my lips
before. May I go on?" he asked.

"Oh yes," I answered, taken by surprise. "I suppose so. It is a relief
to talk, and to listen, I have told you, is my