r except that she is a scatter-brain, and will
make eyes or burst. I sometimes think it isn't her fault--that she was
just born man-crazy."

"She's awfully good fun," he laughed.

"Are you going to her garden party on Wednesday?"

"I accepted before I quarrelled with Uncle Cyrus, but I'll have to get
out of it now."

"Oh, I wouldn't. All the pretty girls in town will be there."

"Are there any plain ones? And what becomes of them?"

"The Lord only knows! Old Judge Bassett used to say that there wouldn't
be any preserves and pickles in the world if all women were born
good-looking. I declare I never realized how small the tower of Saint
James' Church is!"

For a moment he hesitated, and when he spoke his voice had taken a
deeper tone. "Will Virginia Pendleton be at the party?" he asked.

"She wouldn't miss it for anything in the world. Miss Willy Whitlow was
sewing there yesterday on a white organdie dress for her to wear. Have
you ever seen Jinny in white organdie? I always tell Lucy the child
looks sweet enough to eat when she puts it on."

He laughed again, but not as he had laughed at her description of Abby.
"Ask her please to put blue bows on her flounces and a red rose in her
hair," he said.

"Then you are going?"

"Not if I can possibly keep away. Oh, Cousin Priscilla, why didn't I
inherit my soul from your side of the family."

"Well, for my part I don't believe in all this talk about inheritance.
Nobody ever heard of inheriting anything but money when I was a girl.
You've got the kind of soul the good Lord wanted to put into you and
that's all there is about it."

When he returned from assisting her in her panting and difficult descent
of the stairs, he sat down again before the unfinished act of his play,
but his eyes wandered from the manuscript to the town, which lay as
bright and still in the sunlight as if it were imprisoned in crystal.
The wonder aroused in his mind by Miss Priscilla's allusion to Virginia
persisted as a disturbing element in the background of his thoughts.
What had she meant? Was it possible that there was truth in the wildest
imaginings of his vanity? Virginia's face, framed in her wreath of hair,
floated beneath the tower of Saint James' Church at which he was gazing,
and the radiant goodness in her look mounted like a draught of strong
wine to his brain. Passion, which he had discounted in his plans for the
future, appeared suddenly to shake the very foundations of his