universally known as Charley Ellett.

After he had quite converted Gaites to his theory of silence concerning
his outlived romance, he liked to indulge himself, when he got Gaites
alone with the young ladies, in speculations as to the wanderings of
Miss Desmond's piano. He could always get a rise out of Miss Desmond by
referring to the impertinent person who had telegraphed her about it
from Kent Harbor, and he could put Gaites into a quiver of anxiety by
asking him whether he had heard Mrs. Maze speak of the piano when he was
at Kent Harbor, or whether he had happened to see anything of it at any
of the junctions on his way to Lower Merritt. To these questions Gaites
felt himself obliged to respond with lies point-blank, though there were
times when he was tempted to come out with the truth, Miss Axewright
seemed so amiably indifferent, or so sympathetically interested, when
Ellett was airing his conjectures or pushing his investigations.

Still Gaites clung to the refuge of his lies, and upon the whole it
served him well, or at least enabled him to temporize in safety, while
he was making the progress in Miss Axewright's affections which, if he
had not been her lover, he never would have imagined difficult. They
went every day, between the afternoon and evening concerts, to walk in
the Cloister, a colonnade of pines not far from the Inn, which differed
from some other cloisters in being so much devoted to love-making. She
was in love with him, as he was with her; but in her proud maiden soul
she did not dream of bringing him to the confession she longed for. This
came the afternoon of the last day they walked in the Cloister, when it
seemed as if they might go on walking there forever, and never emerge
from their fond, delicious, tremulous, trusting doubt of each other.

She cried upon his shoulder, with her arms round his neck, and owned
that she had loved him from the first moment she had seen him in front
of the S. B. & H. C. freight-depot in Boston; and Gaites tried to make
his passion antedate this moment. To do so, he had to fall back upon the
notion of pre-existence, but she gladly admitted his hypothesis.

The next morning brought another mood, a mood of sweet defiance, in
which she was still more enrapturing. By this time the engagement was
known to their two friends, and Miss Desmond came to the cars with
Charley Ellett to see her off. As Gaites was going to Boston on the same
train, they made it the occas