ng, some
cheering,--everything in the environment was repellent, but in the
midst shone that pale face like a star.

Attracted by the brilliant lights within, or perhaps impelled by that
curious psychic law which arrests the attention of one closely
watched, the girl turned her head as she passed their corner, and her
eyes met those of Flint; she smiled gravely, and he bowed.

Graham saw the interchange of glances, and looked at the man beside
him, with the raised eyebrows of amused comprehension. Flint could
have shot him.

"I don't see," said Mrs. Graham, returning to her venison, "why they
let those creatures go about like that, making everybody
uncomfortable. They are very annoying."

"Yes, very. So were the early Christians," murmured Flint, as he
helped himself to the mushrooms.

"I never studied church history," said Mrs. Graham, a little
repressively. She felt that the conversation was bordering on
blasphemy, and sought to turn it into safer channels. She begged
Flint, whom, she looked upon, in spite of his denials, as alarmingly
cultivated, to recommend a course of reading for the steamer, so that
she might be "up" on the associations of the English lakes.

"You know," she said, "I just _adore_ Wordsworth. I think 'Lucy Grey'
and 'Peter Bell' are too sweet for anything, and the 'Picnic'--no, I
mean the 'Excursion' is my favorite of them all. So light and
cheerful; I'm glad the dear man did take a day off once in a while."

Flint gravely promised a Life of Wordsworth, to be sent to the
"Etruria" to-morrow, and then, bidding his companions adieu, he passed
out into the night.

His mood, as he strolled up the avenue, was far from complacent. He
felt a contempt for himself, as the sport of every passing impression.
It was not enough, it seemed, that he should have cut short a summer
vacation, and come hurrying back to the city at Winifred Anstice's
behest. He must vibrate to every whim about him. He had found, with
inward disgust, that he was raising his elbow to shake hands with the
Grahams, instead of holding his hand at the customary, self-respecting
angle; and that he might be still further convicted of weak
mindedness, he had a sense of being in some inexplicable fashion
dominated by the vision of Nora Costello and her comrades. Not that he
experienced any sudden drawing to the Salvation Army; he felt, to the
core, its crudeness, its limitations, its social dangers. His reason
assured him that its m