nd the river
a gorgeous purple and scarlet after-sunset glow was filling the west
with that magnificence of coloring only the hand of Nature dares to
paint.

Several passengers left the train, but the company had eyes only for the
Pullman car where Fenneben was riding. Nobody, except Bond Saxon, and
a cab driver on the edge of the crowd, noticed a gray-haired woman
who alighted so quietly and slipped to the cab so quickly that she was
almost out to Pigeon Place before Fenneben had been able to clear the
platform.

Behind the Dean was his niece, who halted on the car steps while her
uncle went into the outstretched arms of Lagonda Ledge. At sight of her,
the hats went high in air, as she stood there smiling above the crowd.
It was Maytime when she went away. They had remembered her in dainty
Maytime gowns. They were not prepared for her in her handsome traveling
costume of golden brown, her brown beaver hat, and pretty furs. A
beautiful girl can be so charming in her winter feathers. She had
expected that Burgess would be first to meet her, and she was ready, she
thought, to greet him, becomingly. But as the porter helped her to the
platform, the crowd closed in, shutting him away momentarily, and a hand
caught hers, a big, strong hand whose clasp, so close and warm, seemed
to hold her hand by right of eternal possession. And Victor Burleigh's
brown eyes full of a joyous light were looking down at her. It was all
such a sweet, shadowy time that nobody crowding about them could see
clearly how Elinor, with shining face, nestled involuntarily close to
his arm for just one instant, and her low murmured words, "I am glad
you were first," were lost to all but the big fellow before her, and
a bigger, vastly lazy fellow, Trench, just behind her. It was Trench's
bulk that had blocked the way for the professor a moment before. Then
she was swallowed in the jolly greetings of goodfellowship, and Vincent
Burgess carried her away to the carriage where her uncle waited.

"The thing is settled now," the young folks thought. But Dennie Saxon
and Trench, who walked home together, knew that many things were
hopelessly unsettled. By the law of natural fitness, Dennie and Trench
should have fallen in love with each other. They were so alike in
goodness of heart. But such mating of like with like, is rare, and under
its ruling the world would grow so monotonously good, on the one hand,
and bad, on the other, that life would be uninterest