ur neighbors. The colonel and my father smoke their afternoon cigar
together in our sitting-room or on the piazza opposite, and I pass an
hour or two of the day or the evening with the daughter. I am more and
more struck by the beauty, modesty, and intelligence of Miss Daw.

You asked me why I do not fall in love with her. I will be frank, Jack;
I have thought of that. She is young, rich, accomplished, uniting in
herself more attractions, mental and personal, than I can recall in
any girl of my acquaintance; but she lacks the something that would
be necessary to inspire in me that kind of interest. Possessing this
unknown quality, a woman neither beautiful nor wealthy nor very young
could bring me to her feet. But not Miss Daw. If we were shipwrecked
together on an uninhabited island--let me suggest a tropical island, for
it costs no more to be picturesque--I would build her a bamboo hut, I
would fetch her bread-fruit and cocoanuts, I would fry yams for her,
I would lure the ingenuous turtle and make her nourishing soups, but I
wouldn't make love to her--not under eighteen months. I would like to
have her for a sister, that I might shield her and counsel her, and
spend half my income on old threadlace and camel's-hair shawls. (We are
off the island now.) If such were not my feeling, there would still be
an obstacle to my loving Miss Daw. A greater misfortune could scarcely
befall me than to love her. Flemming, I am about to make a revelation
that will astonish you. I may be all wrong in my premises and
consequently in my conclusions; but you shall judge.

That night when I returned to my room after the croquet party at the
Daw's, and was thinking over the trivial events of the evening, I was
suddenly impressed by the air of eager attention with which Miss Daw had
followed my account of your accident. I think I mentioned this to you.
Well, the next morning, as I went to mail my letter, I overtook Miss
Daw on the road to Rye, where the post-office is, and accompanied her
thither and back, an hour's walk. The conversation again turned to
you, and again I remarked that inexplicable look of interest which had
lighted up her face the previous evening. Since then, I have seen Miss
Daw perhaps ten times, perhaps oftener, and on each occasion I found
that when I was not speaking of you, or your sister, or some person or
place associated with you, I was not holding her attention. She would be
absent-minded, her eyes would wander