first." He
frowned and turned uneasily away, but without contradicting me. I waited
a few moments, to see if he would remember, before we parted, that he had
a claim to make upon me. But he seemed to have forgotten it.

The next day we strolled about the picturesque old city, and of course,
before long, went into the cathedral. Pickering said little; he seemed
intent upon his own thoughts. He sat down beside a pillar near a chapel,
in front of a gorgeous window, and, leaving him to his meditations, I
wandered through the church. When I came back I saw he had something to
say. But before he had spoken I laid my hand on his shoulder and looked
at him with a significant smile. He slowly bent his head and dropped his
eyes, with a mixture of assent and humility. I drew forth from where it
had lain untouched for a month the letter he had given me to keep, placed
it silently on his knee, and left him to deal with it alone.

Half an hour later I returned to the same place, but he had gone, and one
of the sacristans, hovering about and seeing me looking for Pickering,
said he thought he had left the church. I found him in his gloomy
chamber at the inn, pacing slowly up and down. I should doubtless have
been at a loss to say just what effect I expected the letter from Smyrna
to produce; but his actual aspect surprised me. He was flushed, excited,
a trifle irritated.

"Evidently," I said, "you have read your letter."

"It is proper I should tell you what is in it," he answered. "When I
gave it to you a month ago, I did my friends injustice."

"You called it a 'summons,' I remember."

"I was a great fool! It's a release!"

"From your engagement?"

"From everything! The letter, of course, is from Mr. Vernor. He desires
to let me know at the earliest moment that his daughter, informed for the
first time a week before of what had been expected of her, positively
refuses to be bound by the contract or to assent to my being bound. She
had been given a week to reflect, and had spent it in inconsolable tears.
She had resisted every form of persuasion! from compulsion, writes Mr.
Vernor, he naturally shrinks. The young lady considers the arrangement
'horrible.' After accepting her duties cut and dried all her life, she
pretends at last to have a taste of her own. I confess I am surprised; I
had been given to believe that she was stupidly submissive, and would
remain so to the end of the chapter. Not a bit of i