e of
woman's praise would make him betray himself; there was no sign of
gratified authorship in his voice as he quietly laid down the paper and
said dryly: "I am afraid I can't help you. You know it may be purely
fanciful."

"I don't think so," said Mrs. Ashwood thoughtfully. "At the same time it
doesn't strike me as a very abiding grief for that very reason. It's TOO
sympathetic. It strikes me that it might be the first grief of some one
too young to be inured to sorrow or experienced enough to accept it as
the common lot. But like all youthful impressions it is very sincere and
true while it lasts. I don't know whether one gets anything more real
when one gets older."

With an insincerity he could not account for, he now felt inclined to
defend his previous sentiment, although all the while conscious of a
certain charm in his companion's graceful skepticism. He had in his
truthfulness and independence hitherto always been quite free from that
feeble admiration of cynicism which attacks the intellectually weak and
immature, and his present predilection may have been due more to her
charming personality. She was not at all like his sisters; she had
none of Clementina's cold abstraction, and none of Euphemia's sharp
and demonstrative effusiveness. And in his secret consciousness of her
flattering foreknowledge of him, with her assurance that before they had
ever met he had unwittingly influenced her, he began to feel more at his
ease. His fair companion also, in the equally secret knowledge she had
acquired of his history, felt as secure as if she had been formally
introduced. Nobody could find fault with her for showing civility to
the ostensible son of her host; it was not necessary that she should
be aware of their family differences. There was a charm too in their
enforced isolation, in what was the exceptional solitude of the little
hotel that day, and the seclusion of their table by the window of the
dining-room, which gave a charming domesticity to their repast. From
time to time they glanced down the lonely canyon, losing itself in the
afternoon shadow. Nevertheless Mrs. Ashwood's preoccupation with Nature
did not preclude a human curiosity to hear something more of John
Milton's quarrel with his father. There was certainly nothing of the
prodigal son about him; there was no precocious evil knowledge in his
frank eyes; no record of excesses in his healthy, fresh complexion;
no unwholesome or disturbed tastes in