e, as she always did,
the "Now I lay me," which was associated in her mind, as in Agatha's,
with an oriental environment, a swarthy nurse in waist-cloth and
shoulder scarf, and, more than all, was linked with her earliest
memories of the revered father at whose knees the children were
accustomed to repeat it. When Phillida rose to her feet in that state of
exaltation which prayer brings to one who has a natural genius for
devotion, the now penitent and awe-stricken Agatha went to her sister,
put her arms about her neck, and leaned her head upon her shoulder,
saying softly:

"You dear, good Phillida!"

VII.

THE LION SOIREE.

Notwithstanding the romancing of her sister, Phillida built no castles.
Millard's politeness to her had been very agreeable, but she knew that
it was only politeness. Almost every man's and every woman's imagination
is combustible on one side or another. Many young women are set
a-dreaming by any hint of love or marriage. But Phillida had read only
sober books--knowing little of romances, there was no stock of
incendiary material in her memory. Her fancy was easily touched off on
the side of her religious hopes; all her education had intensified the
natural inflammability of her religious emotions, but in affairs of this
world she was by nature and education unusually self-contained for a
woman of one and twenty.

Millard, on his part, had been exposed to the charms of many women, and
his special interest in Phillida amounted only to a lively curiosity.
Always susceptible to the charm of a woman's presence, this
susceptibility had been acted on from so many sides as to make his
interest in women superficial and volatile. The man who is too much
interested in women to be specially interested in a woman is pretty sure
not to marry at all, or to marry late.

Baron Pohlsen arrived, and was duly installed at Mrs. Hilbrough's. He
was greatly pleased with the hospitality shown him by this wealthy
household, and fancied that Americans were the most generous of peoples.
Millard, as in duty bound, took pains to introduce him in many desirable
quarters, and showed him the lions of the city in Hilbrough's carriage.
But in spite of Millard's care to relieve him, Hilbrough afterward
confessed that the panic of 1873 had not taxed his patience and
cheerfulness so deeply as this entertainment for two weeks of a great
German antiquary. Dutifully the banker attended a session of the
Geographical Socie