ess of decorum,
naturally following upon her late outbreak, and it seemed a very
pronounced thing for Alice to be going off into the woods with the young
man; but it would have been a pronounced thing to prevent her, and so
Mrs. Pasmer submitted.

"Isn't it delightful," asked Mrs. Brinkley, following them with her
eyes, "to see the charm that gay young fellow has for that serious girl?
She looked at him while he was dancing as if she couldn't take her eyes
off him, and she followed him as if he drew her by an invisible spell.
Not that spells are ever visible," she added, saving herself. "Though
this one seems to be," she added further, again saving herself.

"Do you really think so?" pleaded Miss Cotton.

"Well, I say so, whatever I think. And I'm not going to be caught up
on the tenter-hooks of conscience as to all my meanings, Miss Cotton. I
don't know them all. But I'm not one of the Aliceolaters, you know."

"No; of course not. But shouldn't you--Don't you think it would be a
great pity--She's so superior, so very uncommon in every way, that it
hardly seems--Ah, I should so like to see some one really fine--not a
coarse fibre in him, don't you know. Not that Mr. Mavering's coarse. But
beside her he does seem so light!"

"Perhaps that's the reason she likes him."

"No, no! I can't believe that. She must see more in him than we can."

"I dare say she thinks she does. At any rate, it's a perfectly evident
case on both sides; and the frank way he's followed her up here, and
devoted himself to her, as if--well, not as if she were the only girl in
the world, but incomparably the best--is certainly not common."

"No," sighed Miss Cotton, glad to admit it; "that's beautiful."

XV.

In the edge of the woods and the open spaces among the trees the
blueberries grew larger and sweeter in the late Northern summer than
a more southern sun seems to make them. They hung dense upon the low
bushes, and gave them their tint through the soft grey bloom that veiled
their blue. Sweet-fern in patches broke their mass here and there, and
exhaled its wild perfume to the foot or skirt brushing through it.

"I don't think there's anything much prettier than these clusters; do
you, Miss Pasmer?" asked Mavering, as he lifted a bunch pendent from the
little tree before he stripped it into the bowl he carried. "And see! it
spoils the bloom to gather them." He held out a handful, and then tossed
them away. "It ought to be managed