d a pair of searching eyes as clear as
Wenham ice; but they were slower to melt than that fickle jewelry. Her
features disordered themselves slightly at times in a surface-smile, but
never broke loose from their corners and indulged in the riotous tumult
of a laugh--which, I take it, is the mob-law of the features,--and
propriety the magistrate who reads the riot-act. She carried the
brimming cup of her inestimable virtues with a cautious, steady hand,
and an eye always on them, to see that they did not spill. Then she
was an admirable judge of character. Her mind was a perfect laboratory
of tests and reagents; every syllable you put into breath went into
her intellectual eudiometer, and all your thoughts were recorded on
litmus-paper. I think there has rarely been a more admirable woman.
Of course, Miss Iris was immensely and passionately attached
to her.----Well,--these are two highly oxygenated adverbs,--grateful,--
suppose we say,--yes,--grateful, dutiful, obedient to her wishes for
the most part,--perhaps not quite up to the concert pitch of such a
perfect orchestra of the virtues.

We must have a weak spot or two in a character before we can love it
much. People that do not laugh or cry, or take more of anything than
is good for them, or use anything but dictionary-words, are admirable
subjects for biographies. But we don't always care most for those
flat-pattern flowers that press best in the herbarium.

This immaculate woman,--why couldn't she have a fault or two? Isn't
there any old whisper which will tarnish that wearisome aureole of
saintly perfection? Doesn't she carry a lump of opium in her pocket?
Isn't her cologne-bottle replenished oftener than its legitimate use
would require? It would be such a comfort!

Not for the world would a young creature like Iris have let such words
escape her, or such thoughts pass through her mind. Whether at the
bottom of her soul lies any uneasy consciousness of an oppressive
presence, it is hard to say, until we know more about her. Iris sits
between the little man and the "Model of all the Virtues," as the
black-coated gentleman called her.--I will watch them all.

----Here I stop for the present. What the Professor said has had to make
way this time for what he saw and heard.

* * * * *

----And now you may read these lines, which were written for gentle
souls who love music, and read in even tones, and, perhaps, with
something like