Surroundings, I turned the pages; and then became conscious that
across the table some one was watching me. I raised my eyes and beheld a
face of most surprising charm, intelligence and beauty. It was so lovely
that it made me wince. The face was the fortune, and judging from the
fact that in her hand she held a salesbook, the sole fortune, of a tall
young girl who apparently had approached to wait on me. She was looking
toward the street, so that, with the book-shelves for a back-ground, her
face was in profile, and I determined swiftly that if she were to wait
on me she would be kept waiting as long as my money lasted. I did not
want "The Log of the JOLLY POLLY," but I did want to hear the lovely
lady speak, and especially I desired that the one to whom she spoke
should be myself.

"What is the price of this?" I asked. With magnificent self-control I
kept my eyes on the book, but the lovely lady was so long silent that I
raised them. To my surprise, I found on her face an expression of
alarm and distress. With reluctance, and yet within her voice a certain
hopefulness, she said, "Fifty dollars."

Fifty dollars was a death blow. I had planned to keep the young lady
selling books throughout the entire morning, but at fifty dollars a
book, I would soon be owing her money. I attempted to gain time.

"It must be very rare!" I said. I was afraid to look at her lest my
admiration should give offense, so I pretended to admire the book.

"It is the only one in existence," said the young lady. "At least, it is
the only one for sale!"

We were interrupted by the approach of a tall man who, from his playing
the polite host and from his not wearing a hat, I guessed was Mr.
Hatchardson himself. He looked from the book in my hand to the lovely
lady and said smiling, "Have you lost it?"

The girl did not smile. To her, apparently, it was no laughing matter.
"I don't know--yet," she said. Her voice was charming, and genuinely
troubled.

Mr. Hatchardson, for later I learned it was he, took the book and showed
me the title-page.

"This was privately printed in 1830," he said, "by Captain Noah Briggs.
He distributed a hundred presentation copies among his family and
friends here in New Bedford. It is a most interesting volume."

I did not find it so. For even as he spoke the young girl, still with a
troubled countenance, glided away. Inwardly I cursed Captain Briggs and
associated with him in my curse the polite Mr. Hatchardson