g with us at the Institute," said Mr.
Bernard.

"I know it," the Doctor answered. "Is she a good scholar?"

All this time the Doctor's eyes were fixed steadily on Mr. Bernard,
looking through the glasses.

"She is a good scholar enough, but I don't know what to make of her.
Sometimes I think she is a little out of her head. Her father, I
believe, is sensible enough;--what sort of a woman was her mother,
Doctor?--I suppose, of course, you remember all about her?"

"Yes, I knew her mother. She was a very lovely young woman."--The Doctor
put his hand to his forehead and drew a long breath.--"What is there you
notice out of the way about Elsie Venner?"

"A good many things," the master answered. "She shuns all the other
girls. She is getting a strange influence over my fellow-teacher, a
young lady,--you know Miss Helen Darley, perhaps? I am afraid this girl
will kill her. I never saw or heard of anything like it, in prose at
least;--do you remember much of Coleridge's Poems, Doctor?"

The good old Doctor had to plead a negative.

"Well, no matter. Elsie would have been burned for a witch in old times.
I have seen the girl look at Miss Darley when she had not the least idea
of it, and all at once I would see her grow pale and moist, and sigh,
and move round uneasily, and turn towards Elsie, and perhaps get up and
go to her, or else have slight spasmodic movements that looked like
hysterics;--do you believe in the evil eye, Doctor?"

"Mr. Langdon," the Doctor said, solemnly, "there are strange things
about Elsie Venner,--very strange things. This was what I wanted to
speak to you about. Let me advise you all to be very patient with the
girl, but also very careful. Her love is not to be desired, and"--he
whispered softly--"her hate is to be dreaded. Do you think she has any
special fancy for anybody else in the school besides Miss Darley?"

Mr. Bernard could not stand the old Doctor's spectacled eyes without
betraying a little of the feeling natural to a young man to whom a home
question involving a possible sentiment is put suddenly.

"I have suspected," he said,--"I have had a kind of feeling--that
she--Well, come, Doctor,--I don't know that there's any use in
disguising the matter,--I have thought Elsie Venner had rather a fancy
for somebody else,--I mean myself."

There was something so becoming in the blush with which the young man
made this confession, and so manly, too, in the tone with which he
spoke, so r