ook
an interest, too, in the newspapers and periodicals that brought the
fermenting thought and the electric life of the great world into his
lonely study; but these things just about him were getting strong hold
on him, and most of all the fortunes of this beautiful young woman. How
strange! For a whole generation he had lived in no nearer relation to
his fellow-creatures than that of a half-fossilized teacher; and all at
once he found himself face to face with the very most intense form of
life, the counsellor of threatened innocence, the champion of imperilled
loveliness. What business was it of his? growled the lower nature, of
which he had said in "Thoughts on the Universe,"--"Every man leads or is
led by something that goes on four legs."

Then he remembered the grand line of the African freedman, that makes
all human interests everybody's business, and had a sudden sense of
dilatation and evolution, as it were, in all his dimensions, as if he
were a head taller, and a foot bigger round the chest, and took in an
extra gallon of air at every breath, Then--you who have written a book
that holds your heart-leaves between its pages will understand the
movement--he took down "Thoughts on the Universe" for a refreshing
draught from his own wellspring. He opened as chance ordered it, and his
eyes fell on the following passage:

"The true American formula was well phrased by the late Samuel Patch,
the Western Empedocles, 'Some things can be done as well as others.'
A homely utterance, but it has virtue to overthrow all dynasties and
hierarchies. These were all built up on the Old-World dogma that some
things can NOT be done as well as others."

"There, now!" he said, talking to himself in his usual way, "is n't that
good? It always seems to me that I find something to the point when I
open that book. 'Some things can be done as well as others,' can they?
Suppose I should try what I can do by visiting Miss Myrtle Hazard? I
think I may say I am old and incombustible enough to be trusted. She
does not seem to be a safe neighbor to very inflammable bodies?"

Myrtle was sitting in the room long known as the Study, or the Library,
when Master Byles Gridley called at The Poplars to see her. Miss
Cynthia, who received him, led him to this apartment and left him alone
with Myrtle. She welcomed him very cordially, but colored as she did
so,--his visit was a surprise. She was at work on a piece of embroidery.
Her first instincti