which nobody ever recognized, taken on the spot by the drawing teacher;
from two illuminated texts of Scripture in an English letter, so
gratuitously and hideously remote as to chill all human interest, to a
large photograph of the senior class, in which the prettiest girls were
Ethiopian in complexion, and sat, apparently, on each other's heads
and shoulders. His fingers had turned listlessly the leaves of
school-catalogues, the SERMONS of Dr. Crammer, the POEMS of Henry Kirke
White, the LAYS OF THE SANCTUARY and LIVES OF CELEBRATED WOMEN. His
fancy, and it was a nervously active one, had gone over the partings
and greetings that must have taken place here, and wondered why the
apartment had yet caught so little of the flavor of humanity; indeed, I
am afraid he had almost forgotten the object of his visit when the door
opened, and Carry Tretherick stood before him.

It was one of those faces he had seen the night before, prettier even
than it had seemed then; and yet I think he was conscious of some
disappointment, without knowing exactly why. Her abundant waving hair
was of a guinea-golden tint, her complexion of a peculiar flowerlike
delicacy, her brown eyes of the color of seaweed in deep water. It
certainly was not her beauty that disappointed him.

Without possessing his sensitiveness to impression, Carry was, on her
part, quite as vaguely ill at ease. She saw before her one of those men
whom the sex would vaguely generalize as "nice," that is to say, correct
in all the superficial appointments of style, dress, manners, and
feature. Yet there was a decidedly unconventional quality about him: he
was totally unlike anything or anybody that she could remember; and as
the attributes of originality are often as apt to alarm as to attract
people, she was not entirely prepossessed in his favor.

"I can hardly hope," he began pleasantly, "that you remember me. It is
eleven years ago, and you were a very little girl. I am afraid I cannot
even claim to have enjoyed that familiarity that might exist between a
child of six and a young man of twenty-one. I don't think I was fond
of children. But I knew your mother very well. I was editor of the
AVALANCHE in Fiddletown when she took you to San Francisco."

"You mean my stepmother; she wasn't my mother, you know," interposed
Carry hastily.

Mr. Prince looked at her curiously. "I mean your stepmother," he said
gravely. "I never had the pleasure of meeting your mother."

"