Murray Bradshaw was
very curious to find out how it was that he had become the victim of
such a rudimentary miss as Susan Posey. Could she be an heiress in
disguise? Why no, of course not; had not he made all proper inquiries
about that when Susan came to town? A small inheritance from an aunt or
uncle, or some such relative, enough to make her a desirable party in
the eyes of certain villagers perhaps, but nothing to allure a man like
this, whose face and figure as marketable possessions were worth say a
hundred thousand in the girl's own right, as Mr. Bradshaw put it
roughly, with another hundred thousand if his talent is what some say,
and if his connection is a desirable one, a fancy price,--anything he
would fetch. Of course not. Must have got caught when he was a child.
Why the _diavolo_ didn't he break it off, then?

There was no fault to find with the modest entertainment at the
Parsonage. A splendid banquet in a great house is an admirable thing,
provided always its getting up did not cost the entertainer an inward
conflict, nor its recollection a twinge of economical regret, nor its
bills a cramp of anxiety. A simple evening party in the smallest village
is just as admirable in its degree, when the parlor is cheerfully
lighted, and the board prettily spread, and the guests are made to feel
comfortable without being reminded that anybody is making a painful
effort.

We know several of the young people who were there, and need not trouble
ourselves for the others. Myrtle Hazard had promised to come. She had
her own way of late as never before; in fact, the women were afraid of
her. Miss Silence felt that she could not be responsible for her any
longer. She had hopes for a time that Myrtle would go through the
customary spiritual paroxysm under the influence of the Rev. Mr.
Stoker's assiduous exhortations; but since she had broken off with him,
Miss Silence had looked upon her as little better than a backslider. And
now that the girl was beginning to show the tendencies which seemed to
come straight down to her from the belle of the last century, (whose
rich physical developments seemed to the under-vitalized spinster as in
themselves a kind of offence against propriety,) the forlorn woman
folded her thin hands and looked on hopelessly, hardly venturing a
remonstrance for fear of some new explosion. As for Cynthia, she was
comparatively easy since she had, through Mr. Byles Gridley, upset the
minister's questio