ave recognized me, for twelve years could not have
obliterated all outward traces of the boy whom she had once known as
her only friend. Remembering that time, remembering the forlorn cabin
in the mountains and the brown, barefooted girl, remembering the
promise of later days given by the sleek vulgarity of Rufus Blight, I
said that she could not have grown to this faultless picture of young
womanhood. Yet the forlorn hope that I might be mistaken would have
held me there awaiting her return had it not been for the haughty
footman by the carriage door. He had been a silent observer of what
had passed, and seeing me now loitering, staring at the modiste's shop,
he cast off his expressionless mask and assumed a very threatening and
scowling appearance. Evidently he, too, thought me a street lounger
who, not satisfied with nearly killing madam, was bent on thrusting his
impertinent attentions on the young mistress. I could not explain to
him that I had known the young mistress years ago when she lived in a
log hut in a mountain valley. His own perfection as a servant made
such an explanation the more incredible; and though loath to abandon
the opportunity to convince myself that I was mistaken, I saw nothing
left for me but to go my way downtown.

As I sat at my desk I was so distrait that Mr. Hanks accused me of
being in love, speaking as though I were the victim of a mental
derangement which unfitted me for serious labor. After the way of men,
I boldly denied his charge. He paid no attention to my protest, but
expressed himself freely on the unwisdom of a man allowing himself to
fall under the influence of delusions which cost him his mental poise
and might disarrange his whole life. Hearing Mr. Hanks, it was
difficult for me to believe that he had ever been in love himself.
Watching him at his work, with his sharp, restless eyes always alert,
and listening to his voice as incisive as his shears, he seemed a man
whose whole mind was possessed by the pursuit of news, a man whose
brain and body worked with such machine-like accuracy that he could
never fall into the puerile errors of his fellows. Now when he was
misusing his authority to browbeat me into what he termed sanity, I
found comfort in recalling that after all he had once in a moment of
forgetfulness confessed to having a home at Mentone Park, with a wife
and four daughters of whose accomplishments he spoke almost with
boasting. So I troubled no longer