ed. For her, indeed, the whole affair was full of mystery
and misgiving.

"Our acquaintance has the charm of novelty every time we meet," she said
once, when pressed hard by Mrs. Ellison. "We are growing better
strangers, Mr. Arbuton and I. By and by, some morning, we shall not know
each other by sight. I can barely recognize him now, though I thought I
knew him pretty well once. I want you to understand that I speak as an
unbiassed spectator, Fanny."

"O Kitty! how can you accuse me of trying to pry into your affairs!"
cries injured Mrs. Ellison, and settles herself in a more comfortable
posture for listening.

"I don't accuse you of anything. I'm sure you've a right to know
everything about me. Only, I want you really to know."

"Yes, dear," says the matron, with hypocritical meekness.

"Well," resumes Kitty, "there are things that puzzle me more and more
about him,--things that used to amuse me at first, because I didn't
actually believe that they could be, and that I felt like defying
afterwards. But now I can't bear up against them. They frighten me, and
seem to deny me the right to be what I believe I am."

"I don't understand you, Kitty."

"Why, you've seen how it is with us at home, and how Uncle Jack has
brought us up. We never had a rule for anything except to do what was
right, and to be careful of the rights of others."

"Well."

"Well, Mr. Arbuton seems to have lived in a world where everything is
regulated by some rigid law that it would be death to break. Then, you
know, at home we are always talking about people, and discussing them;
but we always talk of each person for what he is in himself, and I
always thought a person could refine himself if he tried, and was
sincere, and not conceited. But _he_ seems to judge people according to
their origin and locality and calling, and to believe that all
refinement must come from just such training and circumstances as his
own. Without exactly saying so, he puts everything else quite out of the
question. He doesn't appear to dream that there can be any different
opinion. He tramples upon all that I have been taught to believe; and
though I cling the closer to my idols, I can't help, now and then,
trying myself by his criterions; and then I find myself wanting in every
civilized trait, and my whole life coarse and poor, and all my
associations hopelessly degraded. I think his ideas are hard and narrow,
and I believe that even my little experience would