ood between Dudley Venner and old Doctor Kittredge that
Elsie was a subject of occasional medical observation, on account of
certain mental peculiarities which might end in a permanent affection
of her reason. Beyond this nothing was said, whatever may have been in
the mind of either. But Dudley Venner had studied Elsie's case in the
light of all the books he could find which might do anything towards
explaining it. As in all cases where men meddle with medical science
for a special purpose, having no previous acquaintance with it, his
imagination found what it wanted in the books he read, and adjusted it
to the facts before him. So it was he came to cherish those two
fancies before alluded to: that the ominous birthmark she had carried
from infancy might fade and become obliterated, and that the age of
complete maturity might be signalized by an entire change in her
physical and mental state. He held these vague hopes as all of us
nurse our only half-believed illusions. Not for the world would he
have questioned his sagacious old medical friend as to the probability
or possibility of their being true. We are very shy of asking
questions of those who know enough to destroy with one word the hopes
we live on.

In this life of comparative seclusion to which the father had doomed
himself for the sake of his child, he had found time for large and
varied reading. The learned Judge Thornton confessed himself surprised
at the extent of Dudley Venner's information. Doctor Kittredge found
that he was in advance of him in the knowledge of recent physiological
discoveries. He had taken pains to become acquainted with agricultural
chemistry; and the neighboring farmers owed him some useful hints
about the management of their land. He renewed his old acquaintance
with the classic authors. He loved to warm his pulses with Homer and
calm them down with Horace. He received all manner of new books and
periodicals, and gradually gained an interest in the events of the
passing time. Yet he remained almost a hermit, not absolutely refusing
to see his neighbors, nor ever churlish towards them, but on the other
hand not cultivating any intimate relations with them.

He had retired from the world a young man, little more than a youth,
indeed, with sentiments and aspirations all of them suddenly
extinguished. The first had bequeathed him a single huge sorrow, the
second a single trying duty. In due time the anguish had lost
something of its