discovered
in an adjoining thicket a spring of blandly therapeutic qualities. A
complaisant medical faculty of San Francisco attested to its merits;
a sympathetic press advertised the excellence of the hotel; a
novelty-seeking, fashionable circle--as yet without laws and blindly
imitative--found the new hotel an admirable variation to the vulgar
ordinary "across the bay" excursion, and an accepted excuse for a novel
social dissipation. A number of distinguished people had already visited
it; certain exclusive families had secured the best rooms; there were a
score of pretty women to be seen in its parlors; there had already been
a slight scandal. Nothing seemed wanting to insure its success.

Reddy was passing through the little wood where four months before he
had parted from Kelly Woodridge to learn his fate from her father. He
remembered that interview to which Nelly's wafted kiss had inspired
him. He recalled to-day, as he had many times before, the singular
complacency with which Mr. Woodridge had received his suit, as if it
were a slight and unimportant detail of the business in hand, and how he
had told him that Kelly and her mother were going to the "States" for a
three months' visit, but that after her return, if they were both "still
agreed," he, Woodridge, would make no objection. He remembered the
slight shock which this announcement of Kelly's separation from him
during his probationary labors had given him, and his sudden suspicion
that he had been partly tricked of his preliminary intent to secure her
company to solace him. But he had later satisfied himself that she
knew nothing of her father's intentions at the time, and he was fain to
content himself with a walk through the fields at her side the day she
departed, and a single kiss--which left him cold. And now in a few days
she would return to witness the successful fufillment of his labors,
and--reward him!

It was certainly a complacent prospect. He could look forward to a
sensible, prosperous, respectable future. He had won back his good
name, his fortune, and position,--not perhaps exactly in the way he
had expected,--and he had stilled the wanton, foolish cravings of his
passionate nature in the calm, virginal love of an honest, handsome girl
who would make him a practical helpmeet, and a comfortable, trustworthy
wife. He ought to be very happy. He had never known such perfect health
before; he had lost his reckless habits; his handsome, nervous