es instantly; the aversion of one hour
becomes the delight of the next; but those who are guided by reasoning,
especially where there is a shade of resentment,--who are fortified by
pride of opinion, and by the idea of consistent self-respect,--such
persons are slow to change a settled conviction; the course of feeling
is too powerful and too constant to be arrested and turned backward.
Easelmann thought--and perhaps rightly--that Alice needed only time to
become accustomed to the new view of the case; and he believed that any
precipitation might be fatal to his friend's hopes.

"Give her the opportunity to think about it," he said; "if she loves
you, depend upon it, the wind will change with her. Due east to-day,
according to all you have told me; and the violets won't blossom till
the sun comes out of the sullen gray cloud and the south wind breathes
on them.--The very contact with a lover, you see, makes me poetical."

"But her thoughts may take another direction. Who can tell what
impression that malicious vixen has made upon her?"

"Alice, I fancy, is a sensible young woman; and Miss Sandford, in her
rage, must have shown her hand too freely. To be sure, Alice might
wonder how you could ever have been captivated; but she could not blame
you for getting out of reach of such a Tartar. Besides, the exemplary
widow is your friend, you know, and I'll warrant that she will set the
matter right. Marcia won't trouble you again; such a mischance couldn't
happen twice. You are as safe as the sailor who put his head into the
hole where a cannon-shot had just come through. Lightning doesn't strike
the same tree twice in one shower."

Greenleaf was at length persuaded to wait and let events take their
course. If he remained inactive, however, Easelmann did not; from Mrs.
Sandford he heard daily the progress of affairs, and at length intimated
to his friend that it might be judicious to call again.

Once more Greenleaf was seated in the drawing-room of the
boarding-house. At every distant footstep his heart beat almost audibly;
and when at last the breezy rustle of a woman's robes came in from the
hall, he thought, as many a man has, before and since,--

"She is coming, my life, my fate!"

She entered, not with the welcoming smile he would have liked to see,
nor with the forbidding cloud of sadness which veiled her face a few
days before. But how lovely! Time had given fulness and perfection to
her beauty, while the effec