sn't much of them. They're the
'waters on a starry night' sort, very sweet and glimmering. She has a
kind of ground-colored hair and a nice little chin. Her mouth helps her
eyes out; it looks best when she speaks; it's pathetic in the play of
the lips."

"I see," Mrs. Verrian said.

XX.

The following week Verrian and his mother were at a show of paintings,
in the gallery at the rear of a dealer's shop, and while they were
bending together to look at a picture he heard himself called to in a
girlish voice, "Oh, Mr. Verrian!" as if his being there was the greatest
wonder in the world.

His mother and he lifted themselves to encounter a tall, slim girl, who
was stretching her hand towards him, and who now cried out, joyously,
"Oh, Mr. Verrian, I thought it must be you, but I was afraid it wasn't
as soon as I spoke. Oh, I'm so glad to see you; I want so much to have
you know my mother--Mr. Verrian," she said, presenting him.

"And I you mine," Verrian responded, in a violent ellipse, and
introduced his own mother, who took in the fact of Miss Andrews's tall
thinness, topped with a wide, white hat and waving white plumes, and her
little face, irregular and somewhat gaunt, but with a charm in the lips
and eyes which took the elder woman's heart with pathos. She made talk
with Mrs. Andrews, who affected one as having the materials of social
severity in her costume and manner.

"Oh, I didn't believe I should ever see you again," the girl broke
out impulsively upon Verrian. "Oh, I wanted to ask you so about Miss
Shirley. Have you seen her since you got back?"

"No," Verrian said, "I haven't seen her."

"Oh, I thought perhaps you had. I've been to the address that Mrs.
Westangle gave me, but she isn't there any more; she's gone up into
Harlem somewhere, and I haven't been able to call again. Oh, I do feel
so anxious about her. Oh, I do hope she isn't ill. Do you think she is?"

"I don't believe so," Verrian began. But she swept over his prostrate
remark.

"Oh, Mr. Verrian, don't you think she's wonderful? I've been telling
mother about it, and I don't feel at all the way she does. Do you?"

"How does she feel? I must know that before I say."

"Why, of course! I hadn't told you! She thinks it was a make-up between
Miss Shirley and that Mr. Bushwick. But I say it couldn't have been. Do
you think it could?"

Verrian found the suggestion so distasteful, for a reason which he did
not quite seize himself, that h