uld not tell me.

"There are such dreadful things," Hermione said again. "Just think how
horrible it would be if"---- She stopped short, and blushed crimson in
the ruddy firelight.

"What?" I asked. But she did not answer, and I saw that the idea had
pained her, whatever it might be. Presently she turned the phrase so as
to make it appear natural enough.

"What a horrible thing it would be if we found that poor aunt Annie only
let us believe she was mad, because she had done something she was sorry
for, and would not own it!"

"Dreadful indeed," I replied. Hermione rose from her deep chair.

"Good-night, Mr. Griggs," she said. "I hope we may all understand
everything some day."

"Good-night, Miss Carvel."

"How careful you are of the formalities!" she said, laughing. "How two
years change everything! It used to be 'Good-night, Hermy,' so short a
time ago!"

"Good-night, Hermy," I said, laughing too, as she took my hand. "If you
are old enough to be called Miss Carvel, I am old enough to call you
Hermy still."

"Oh, I did not mean that," she said, and went away.

I sat a few minutes by the fire after she had gone, and then, fearing
lest I should be disturbed by the professor or John Carvel, I too left
the hall, and went to my own room, to think over the events of the day.
I had learned so much that I was confused, and needed rest and leisure
to reflect. That morning I had waked with a sensation of unsatisfied
curiosity. All I had wanted to discover had been told me before
bed-time, and more also; and now I was unpleasantly aware that this very
curiosity was redoubled, and that, having been promoted from knowing
nothing to knowing something, I felt I had only begun to guess how much
there was to be known.

Oh, this interest in other people's business! How grand and beautiful
and simple a thing it is to mind one's own affairs, and leave other
people to mind what concerns them! And yet I defy the most indifferent
man alive to let himself be put in my position, and not to feel
curiosity; to be taken into a half confidence of the most intense
interest, and not to desire exceedingly to be trusted with the
remainder; to be asked to consider and give an opinion upon certain
effects, and to be deliberately informed that he may never know the
causes which led to the results he sees.

On mature reflection, what had struck me as most remarkable in
connection with the whole matter was Hermione's simple, almost childli