fact, I was at his commencement.
Why," and suddenly her eyes gathered into focus; "I remember you then,
Mr. Brenton. Reed showed you to me as----" Then, all at once, she
faltered and her colour came.

He strove to help her out of the abyss into which she so unwittingly
had fallen.

"One of the waiters at his eating club, and popularly known there as
'Reed's Parson'?" he asked her, with a little smile which sought to
cover the sting that came to him with the memory.

But Olive shook her head.

"No; not that at all. It was one of the Might-Have-Beens, he called
you," she said, with brave downrightness. But, afterwards, when she
thought the matter over, she wondered whether she had bettered it, or
made it worse. In any case, she went on a little hastily. "Since then,
as it happens, I never once have been here, when Reed has been at home.
Of course, he has been back here now and then; but once I was in
London, and in New York, the other times."

"Where is he?"

She shook her head again.

"That is the hardest sort of question to answer, for he is always on
the wing. He went in for mining engineering, and is making quite a
record as consulting engineer. It's copper, I think, he consults about;
anyway, no one ever can predict where he will be heard from next.
Really, if you knew him, you must meet Professor Opdyke. The dear old
man is bursting with pride in his only son; he talks about him by the
hour at a time, if we let him. The trouble is that we all are so cloyed
with hearing about Reed's virtues and Reed's triumphs that we have a
tendency to run away before the paternal downpour commences. A new pair
of ears will be a veritable godsend to his father. He and my father are
the greatest sort of chums, and--" Suddenly Olive paused and began to
look distinctly uneasy. "By the way, Mr. Brenton, where is my father? I
really think that, in mercy to your patience, I'd better go and jog his
memory once more."

And jog his memory she did, and with such success that, this time,
Doctor Keltridge put in a tardy and apologetic appearance. However,
when, smiling guiltily at his own sins of omission, he came to greet
his guest, he came alone. Olive, her hospitable duty done, had
vanished, to return no more.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Saint Peter's Parish was unique in all New England. The trails of old
and new in its experience crossed and crisscrossed at every point,
causing a long succession of eccentricities which endeared