t; and every one knows how impressions are transmitted.
If features and traits of character, why not particular thoughts and
feelings?"

"I think it is better not to try to explain these things," said she,
with the unconscious haughtiness which maidens acquire who have not seen
the world and are adored by their family. "They are great mysteries,--or
else nothing." She now removed from her head the curious cap or helmet,
ornamented with gold and with the green feathers of the humming-bird,
which her companion had crowned her with, and hung it on its nail in the
cabinet. "Perhaps the thoughts came with the cap," she remarked, smiling
slightly. "I don't feel that way any more. I ought not to have spoken of
it."

"I hope the time will come when you will feel that you may trust me."

"You seem easy to know, Mr. Freeman," she replied, looking at him
contemplatively as she spoke, "and yet you are not. There is one of you
that thinks, and another that speaks. And you are not the same to my
father, or to Professor Meschines, that you are to me."

"What is the use of human beings except to take one out of one's self?"

"But it is not your real self that comes out," said Miriam, after a
little pause. She never spoke hurriedly, or until after the coming
speech had passed into her face.

Freeman laughed. "Well," he said, "if I'm a hypocrite, I'm one of those
who are made and not born. As a boy, I was frank enough. But a good
part of my life has been spent with people who couldn't be trusted; and
perhaps the habit of protecting myself against them has grown upon me.
If I could only live here for a while it would be different.--Here's an
odd-looking thing. What do you call that?"

"We call it the Golden Fleece."

"The Golden Fleece! I can imagine a Medea; but where is the Dragon?"

"If Jason came, the Dragon might appear."

"I remember reading somewhere that the Dragon was less to be feared than
Medea's eyes. But this fleece seems to have lost most of its gold. There
is only a little gold embroidery."

"It shows where the gold is hidden."

"It's you that are concealing something now, Miss Trednoke. How can a
woollen garment be a talisman?"

"The secret might be woven into it, perhaps," replied Miriam, passing
her fingers caressingly over the soft tunic. "Then, when the right
person puts it on, it would----But you don't believe in these things."

"I don't know: you don't give me a chance. But who is the right person?
T