oman in the town who had ever been to Bayreuth, she added
short-windedly in explanation of her remarks, and had lobbied herself
into a place on the program on the strength of that fact.

"Does Bess know," asked Miss Finch, "about this mesmerist person?"

"Oh, there isn't anything there," said Doctor Brown, "I feel sure.
Though his inti--ah, friendship with this Le Claire woman is, just at
this time, in bad taste. But all men are natural polygamists, you
know."

"They say," said the voice of a member from across the room, "that it
will be quite a palace--throw everything else in Bellevale in the
shade--entirely so."

"They are all talking of it," said Mrs. Alvord. "Jim says it seems odd
to have this Mr. Blodgett looking into the Brassfield business. But
everything is odd, now--the hypnotist and Mr. Blodgett, and Daisy
Scarlett; she's still here."

"O----o!" said Doctor Brown, in a sinuous barytone circumflex.

"Really," said Miss Finch, who wore her dress high about the neck, and
whose form was a symphony in angles, "such promiscuous associations may
be shocking, but as to surprise--who knows anything of his life before
he came here?"

"Judge Blodgett," said Doctor Brown, "told a friend of mine that he had
known Brassfield from infancy."

"The first light Bellevale has ever received on a dark past," said Miss
Finch, "if it is light. And how strangely he acts! Everybody notices
it. Always so chatty and almost voluble before, and now--why, he's
dreadfully boorish. You know how he treated you, Miss Brown!"

"Yes, and he knows how I treated him for it!" said Doctor Brown. "I
propose to call people down when they act so with me!"

"Quite right," said Mrs. Alvord, "quite correct, Doctor. Oh, what a
change! And who has changed for the worse lately more than Bessie
Waldron? Pale, silent and clearly unhappy. I can't attach any
importance to that affair of the strange woman with the striped hair;
but that Miss Scarlett matter--that's quite different. Jim and I saw
the beginning of that up in the mountains last summer. Daisy Scarlett
is a queer girl, so wild and hoidenish--but the people who know her in
Allentown just think the world of her, the same as do the people in
Bellevale--and her appearance here right after the announcement of the
engagement means something. Poor Bess! Hush! There she comes. Oh,
Bessie, it's so sweet of you to come, even if you are late! Everybody
has been saying such sweet t