ess,
Mr. Bowers was fain to meet his unresponsive eye and manner with some
explanation.

"Ye disremember my comin' here, Mr. Editor, to ask you the name o' the
lady who called herself 'White Violet,' and how you allowed you couldn't
give it, but would write and ask for it?"

Mr. Editor, leaning back in his chair, now remembered the occurrence,
but was distressed to add that the situation remained unchanged, and
that he had received no such permission.

"Never mind THAT, my lad," said Mr. Bowers, gravely, waving his hand. "I
understand all that; but, ez I've known the lady ever since, and am now
visiting her at her house on the Summit, I reckon it don't make much
matter."

It was quite characteristic of Mr. Bowers's smileless earnestness that
he made no ostentation of this dramatic retort, nor of the undisguised
stupefaction of the editor.

"Do you mean to say that you have met White Violet, the author of these
poems?" repeated the editor.

"Which her name is Delatour,--the widder Delatour,--ez she has herself
give me permission to tell you," continued Mr. Bowers, with a certain
abstracted and automatic precision that dissipated any suggestion of
malice in the reversed situation.

"Delatour!--a widow!" repeated the editor.

"With five children," continued Mr. Bowers. Then, with unalterable
gravity, he briefly gave an outline of her condition and the
circumstances of his acquaintance with her.

"But I reckoned YOU might have known suthin' o' this; though she never
let on you did," he concluded, eying the editor with troubled curiosity.

The editor did not think it necessary to implicate Mr. Hamlin. He said,
briefly, "I? Oh, no!"

"Of course, YOU might not have seen her?" said Mr. Bowers, keeping the
same grave, troubled gaze on the editor.

"Of course not," said the editor, somewhat impatient under the singular
scrutiny of Mr. Bowers; "and I'm very anxious to know how she looks.
Tell me, what is she like?"

"She is a fine, pow'ful, eddicated woman," said Mr. Bowers, with slow
deliberation. "Yes, sir,--a pow'ful woman, havin' grand ideas of her
own, and holdin' to 'em." He had withdrawn his eyes from the editor, and
apparently addressed the ceiling in confidence.

"But what does she look like, Mr. Bowers?" said the editor, smiling.

"Well, sir, she looks--LIKE--IT! Yes,"--with deliberate caution,--"I
should say, just like it."

After a pause, apparently to allow the editor to materialize this
ravishin