the
impropriety of selecting a lake, so they need not be anxious about the
white canoe and its occupant, as they watched it skimming the surface of
the deep waters.

The holder of the Portfolio would never have ventured to come before
the public if he had not counted among his resources certain papers
belonging to the records of the Pansophian Society, which he can make
free use of, either for the illustration of the narrative, or for a
diversion during those intervals in which the flow of events is languid,
or even ceases for the time to manifest any progress. The reader can
hardly have failed to notice that the old Anchor Tavern had become the
focal point where a good deal of mental activity converged. There were
the village people, including a number of cultivated families; there
were the visitors, among them many accomplished and widely travelled
persons; there was the University, with its learned teachers and
aspiring young men; there was the Corinna Institute, with its eager,
ambitious, hungry-souled young women, crowding on, class after class
coming forward on the broad stream of liberal culture, and rounding
the point which, once passed, the boundless possibilities of womanhood
opened before them. All this furnished material enough and to spare for
the records and the archives of the society.

The new Secretary infused fresh life into the meetings. It may be
remembered that the girls had said of her, when she was The Terror, that
"she knew everything and didn't believe anything." That was just
the kind of person for a secretary of such an association. Properly
interpreted, the saying meant that she knew a great deal, and wanted to
know a great deal more, and was consequently always on the lookout for
information; that she believed nothing without sufficient proof that
it was true, and therefore was perpetually asking for evidence where,
others took assertions on trust.

It was astonishing to see what one little creature like The Terror could
accomplish in the course of a single season. She found out what each
member could do and wanted to do. She wrote to the outside visitors whom
she suspected of capacity, and urged them to speak at the meetings, or
send written papers to be read. As an official, with the printed title
at the head of her notes, PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY, she was a privileged
personage. She begged the young persons who had travelled to tell
something of their experiences. She had contemplated gettin