ircumstances, maybe, an old man dreams of an ideal friend,
till he throws himself into the arms of any impostor who chooses to
wear that title on his face. A young man may dream of an ideal friend
likewise, but some humor of the blood will probably lead him to think
rather of an ideal mistress, and at length the rustle of a woman's
dress, the sound of her voice, or the transit of her form across the
field of his vision, will enkindle his soul with a flame that blinds
his eyes.

The discovery of the attractive Grace's name and family would have been
enough in other circumstances to lead the doctor, if not to put her
personality out of his head, to change the character of his interest in
her. Instead of treasuring her image as a rarity, he would at most
have played with it as a toy. He was that kind of a man. But situated
here he could not go so far as amative cruelty. He dismissed all
reverential thought about her, but he could not help taking her
seriously.

He went on to imagine the impossible. So far, indeed, did he go in
this futile direction that, as others are wont to do, he constructed
dialogues and scenes in which Grace had turned out to be the mistress
of Hintock Manor-house, the mysterious Mrs. Charmond, particularly
ready and willing to be wooed by himself and nobody else. "Well, she
isn't that," he said, finally. "But she's a very sweet, nice,
exceptional girl."

The next morning he breakfasted alone, as usual. It was snowing with a
fine-flaked desultoriness just sufficient to make the woodland gray,
without ever achieving whiteness. There was not a single letter for
Fitzpiers, only a medical circular and a weekly newspaper.

To sit before a large fire on such mornings, and read, and gradually
acquire energy till the evening came, and then, with lamp alight, and
feeling full of vigor, to pursue some engrossing subject or other till
the small hours, had hitherto been his practice. But to-day he could
not settle into his chair. That self-contained position he had lately
occupied, in which the only attention demanded was the concentration of
the inner eye, all outer regard being quite gratuitous, seemed to have
been taken by insidious stratagem, and for the first time he had an
interest outside the house. He walked from one window to another, and
became aware that the most irksome of solitudes is not the solitude of
remoteness, but that which is just outside desirable company.

The breakfast h