kind heart."

In the meantime, unknown to Mrs. Holt, who might in all conscience have
had a knowledge of what may be called social chemistry, a drama was
slowly unfolding itself. By no fault of Honora's, of course. There
may have been some truth in the quotation of the Vicomte as applied to
her--that she was destined to be loved only amidst the play of drama. If
experience is worth anything, Monsieur de Toqueville should have been an
expert in matters of the sex. Could it be possible, Honora asked herself
more than once, that his feelings were deeper than her feminine instinct
and, the knowledge she had gleaned from novels led her to suspect?

It is painful to relate that the irregularity and deceit of the life the
Vicomte was leading amused her, for existence at Silverdale was plainly
not of a kind to make a gentleman of the Vicomte's temperament and
habits ecstatically happy. And Honora was filled with a strange and
unaccountable delight when she overheard him assuring Mrs. Wellfleet,
the English lady of eleemosynary tendencies, that he was engaged in a
study at first hand of Americans.

The time has come to acknowledge frankly that it was Honora he was
studying--Honora as the type of young American womanhood. What he did
not suspect was that young American womanhood was studying him. Thanks
to a national System, she had had an apprenticeship; the heart-blood of
Algernon Cartwright and many others had not been shed in vain. And the
fact that she was playing with real fire, that this was a duel with
the buttons off, lent a piquancy and zest to the pastime which it had
hitherto lacked.

The Vicomte's feelings were by no means hidden processes to Honora, and
it was as though she could lift the lid of the furnace at any time and
behold the growth of the flame which she had lighted. Nay, nature had
endowed her with such a gift that she could read the daily temperature
as by a register hung on the outside, without getting scorched. Nor had
there been any design on her part in thus tormenting his soul. He had
not meant to remain more than four days at Silverdale, that she knew;
he had not meant to come to America and fall in love with a penniless
beauty--that she knew also. The climax would be interesting, if
perchance uncomfortable.

It is wonderful what we can find the time to do, if we only try.
Monsieur de Toqueville lent Honora novels, which she read in bed; but
being in the full bloom of health and of a strong co