ay
of the dinner laid her hands on him and pulled him away.

"Sarah will never give him up," said Ben.

"She swears there is good in him. I think he is a wretch," turning
over the leaves of a book with her beautiful hand, such a hand as I
had just seen beating the door--such a hand as clasped its fellow in
Ben's hair. Adelaide was not embarrassed at my presence. She neither
sought nor avoided my look. But Ben said, "You are thinking."

"Is she?" And Adelaide raised her eyes.

"You are all so much alike," I said.

"You are right," she answered seriously. "Our grandfather--"

"Confound him!" broke in Ben. "I wish he had never been born. Are
you proud, Addie, of being like the Pickersgills? But I know you are.
Remember that the part of us which is Pickersgill hates its like. I am
off; I am going to walk."

Adelaide coolly said, after he had gone, that he was very visionary,
predicting changes that could not be, and determined to bring them
about.

"Why did he bring me here?" I asked, as if I were asking in a dream.

"Ben's hospitality is genuine. He is like pa. Besides, you are related
to us--on the Somers side, and are the first visitor we ever saw,
outside of mother's connection. Do you not know, too, that Ben's
friendship is very sincere--very strong?"

"I begin to comprehend the Pickersgills," I remarked as if in a dream.
"How words with any meaning glance off, when addressed to them. How
impossible it is to return the impression they give. How incapable
they are of appreciating what they cannot appropriate to the use of
their idiosyncrasies."

She gazed at me, as if she heard an abstract subject discussed, with a
slight interest in her black eyes.

"Are they vicious to the death?" I went on with this dream. "It is
not fair--their overpowering personality--it is not fair to others. It
overpowers me, though I know it is _all_ fallacious."

"I am ignorant of Ethical Philosophy."

"Miss Somers," said Murphy, knocking, "if Major Millard is below?"

"I am coming."

She smiled when she looked at me again. I stared at her with a
singular feeling. Had I touched her, or had I made a fool of myself?

"There is some nice gingerbread in the closet. Sha'n't I get you a
piece?"

I fell out of my dream.

"Major Millard is an old beau. Come down and captivate him. He likes
fair women."

Declining the gingerbread, I accepted the Major. He was an old
gentleman, in a good deal of highly starched linen, amusing