the
stairs and who went by him in such haste that he had only time to give
her one short but--it must be described as--concentrated look straight
in the eyes. She in turn bestowed upon him the one glance necessary to
inform her whether she knew him and so must stay long enough in her
rapid progress to greet him. Their eyes therefore met at rather close
range, lingered for the space of two running seconds, and parted.

Richard Kendrick accepted the chair offered him and sat upon it for the
space of some eighteen-odd minutes; they might have been hours or
seconds, he could not have told which. He could hardly have described
the room to which he had been shown, unless to say that it was a square,
old-fashioned reception room, a little formal, decidedly quaint, and
dignified, and clearly not used by the family as other rooms were used.
Certainly the piano, from which he had heard the Schumann music on his
former visit, was not here, and certainly there were no rose-hued scarfs
flung carelessly about. It was undoubtedly a place kept for the use of
strange callers like himself, and had small part in the life of the
household.

At length he was summoned to Judge Gray's library. He was met with the
same pleasant courtesy as before, delivered his parcel, and lingered as
long as might be, listening politely to his host's remarks, and looking,
looking--for a chance to make a reason to come again. Quite unexpectedly
it was offered him by the Judge himself.

"I wonder if you could recommend to me," said Judge Gray as Richard was
about to take his leave, "a capable young man--college-bred, of
course--to come here daily or weekly as I might need him, to assist me
in the work of preparing my book. My eyes, as you see, will not allow me
to use them for much more than the reading of a paragraph, and while my
family are very ready to help whenever they have the time, mine is so
serious a task, likely to continue for so long a period, that I shall
need continuous and prolonged assistance. Do you happen to know--?"

Well, it can hardly be explained. This was a rich man's heir and the
grandson of millions more, in need--according to his own point of
view--of no further education along the lines of work, and he had a
voyage to the Far East in prospect. Certainly, a fortnight earlier the
thing furthest from his thoughts would have been the engaging of himself
as amanuensis and general literary assistant to an ex-judge upon so
prosaic a ta