lle, and she had been nervously watching for him for an hour. She was consumed with impatience to hear what he had to say. If her story had not

the gods-to stay long; she needed, after the excitement of the day, to be alone, to be quiet

who was sewing beneath the pleasant lamp; then she struck a few chords; th

scribe to their old magazine, or even to ask me to be agent. John S

tall figure of the stranger, she summoned Mrs. B

delectation. He called it, in the city-dweller's metaphor, a beautiful stage-set. After she had greeted him, Mrs. Bent went back to her work. Except

also, and though she was still immature and provincial, she was not awkward or self-conscious. She accepted the announcement wh

you are

oice which belied the tumult within. It se

ill keep o

!" said

I suppose, and record

es

read a gr

es

ns? Are you going to stay here?" Utte

d Eleanor. "I have just graduated to-d

our mother

es

have a winte

ometime I might go to

an experience. Boston was of the past. No one got experience of anythi

man's, dependent upon outside influences; it is far less self-nourished and self-originated; she

g "yes." She was, in spite of her confusion, a little amused. Utterly had come half a day too lat

influence of Shelley upon the young Browning, the place of Edgar Allan Poe in American literature and in English literature as a whole, and finally, the ethics of biographical writing. The heat with which he spoke upon the last topic was the sudden bursting into flame of the embers which had smoldered since the afternoon. Had the world a right to all it could learn of the lives of geniuses, or had it not? It most assuredly had, declared Utterly. An author's acts in the world, an artist's, a musician's, were as much the property of the wo

ions which would rob him of his freedom. Only a few great men had been men of family, or, being men of family, had got on with

authors whom he mentioned. Shelley she had read from cover to cover and Byron also, and Charlotte Bront?, of course. But she did not know much about t

ake up Basil Everman's life from his works, so clearly did they indicat

as," confessed Eleanor, mortified by her ow

ine fire, but to hide their ashes. Basil Everman was the brother of the wife of your college president; he grew up in this town, a person of extraordinary mind; he died. But nobody remember

lew to her mother. She was excited and elated,

y, mother, and I am to h

repeated Mrs. Bent. "Why, Eleanor!"

o to New York, mother, and sometime to Europe. He says one must have many differ

as though events were happeni

ny one by the name of Basil Everm

oked not only startled, but frightened. For some reason Eleanor remembered the long-past encounter with drunken Bates on th

alk about Ba

, and that nobody in Waltonville appreciated him or was wi

t you sleepy, Eleanor?" But Eleanor was not to be thus easily turned away. Basil

now him we

out her hand t

s, then I'll o

you knew him

o very

ow about hi

N

d anything

N

thing like

ard the garden and the houses of the town, she sat a long time. There was on her face the same expression of alarm that had rested there when she sat in

ichard Lister, of the crisp waves of his hair, of his strong young hands which moved so swiftly. It seemed to her that he had played not only upon the p

could recall every motion of his light-stepping figure as he moved from the flag walk to let her pass. She remembered the straight line in which his coat fell from his shoulders as he sat at Thomasina's piano, she could see his flashing smile. She tried to remember the details of the appearance of others, and decided with satisfaction that she had forgotten them. She heard

it now in a flash-a dreadful thing. In "Professor Ellenborough's Last Class" she had made humorous use of some of the small mannerisms of the college professors. Little habits of Dr. Lister's were described; his constant swinging of his foot, the tendency of his shoelaces to dangle, and his drawing-in of his breath w

citizens, became for the first time a source of anxiety. Hitherto she had been indifferent t

duets had been an afterthought, suggested by the new piano. He had merely happened to have the book with him, being on his way doubtless to

orrow and took his book away and made her feel that they were strangers, then she would suspect that for Richard and the Listers, and therefore for Waltonville, she and her mother wer

akefulness. Her mother seemed always to have ample supplies of money for their needs. But the price of the beauti

pon Richard Lister to rescue her, and Richard proved to be not himself, but Dr. Green, who would have none of her. This imagina