sided changefulness.

"What? no trap yet? Thorsen is outliving his usefulness; he is getting
slower and pokier every added day he lives!" the voice was saying, with
a faintly acid quality in it that Griswold had seldom heard. Then, as if
she had marked his preoccupied gaze and divined its object: "You must
have a little more patience, Mr. Griswold. All things come to him who
waits. When you have left Mereside finally, Doctor Bertie will some time
take you home to dinner with him."

For his own peace of mind, Griswold hastily assured himself that it was
only the wildest of chance shots. Since the day when he had admitted
that he knew Miss Farnham's name without knowing Miss Farnham in person,
the doctor's daughter had never been mentioned between them.

"How did you happen to guess that I was thinking of the good doctor?" he
asked, curiously.

"You were not thinking of Doctor Bertie; you were thinking of Doctor
Bertie's 'only'," was the laughing contradiction; and Griswold was glad
that the coming of the man with the trap saved him from the necessity of
falling any farther into what might easily prove to be a dangerous
pitfall. Later on, while he was mechanically lifting his hat in
recognition of the many salutations acknowledged by his companion in
their triumphal progress down Main Street, he was still thankful and
still puzzling over the almost uncanny coincidence. It was not the first
time that Miss Grierson had seemed able to read his inmost thoughts.

The short afternoon drive paused at the curb in front of Jasper
Grierson's bank, and, as on former occasions, Margery lightly scorned
the convalescent's up-stretched arms and sprang unhelped to the
pavement. But now her mood was sweetly indulgent and she softened the
refusal. "By and by, after you are quite well and strong again," she
said; and when a horse-holding boy had been found, she led the way into
the bank.

It was Griswold's first visit to the Farmers' and Merchants', and while
his companion was speaking to the cashier he was absently contrasting
its rather showy interior with the severe plainness of the Bayou State
Security; contrasting, and congratulating himself upon the gift of the
artistic memory which enabled him to recall with vivid accuracy all the
little details of the New Orleans banking house--this notwithstanding
the good excuse the observing eye might have had for wandering.

A moment later he found himself bringing up the rear of a proces