never personally ridiculed. No tongue dared to whisper an insinuation against either her sincerity or her purity. This, however, was partly owing to the circumstances of her life in the place. She had first achieved popularity as a teacher, and honor as a daughter. Among other things, it was generally reported and believed that she had declined an offer of marriage, advantageous in a worldly point of view, and the act was set down to her credit as wholly one of duty towards her mother.

In her plain brown dress, with linen collar and cuffs, the only ornament being a knot of blue ribbon at the throat, she also, appeared to be a Quakeress; yet, she had long since perceived that the external forms of the sect had become obsolete, 'and no longer considered herself bound by them. Some concession in dress, however, was still due for her mother's sake, beyond whose rapidly shortening span of life she could see no aim in her own, unless it were devoted to righting the wrongs of her sex. She had had her girlish dreams; but the next birthday was her thirtieth, and she had already crossed, in resolve, that deep gulf in a woman's life.

Miss Caroline Dilworth, in her blue dress, came as if dipped in the Indian Summer, with a beryl gleam in her eyes, as she darted into the sitting-room. She caught Hannah Thurston around the waist, and kissed her twice: she was never known to greet her female friends with less. Then, leaning gently over the rocking-chair, she took the old woman's hand.

"Take off thy bonnet, child," said the latter, "and push thy hair back, so that I can see thy face. I'm glad thee's come."

"Oh, Friend Thurston, I was so afraid I couldn't get away from Parkman's. It's a lonely place, you know, over the hill, and she's hard of hearing. Ah! I'm out of breath, yet”—and therewith heaving a sigh of relief, the little creature threw off her shawl and untied the strings of her bonnet.

Their life had so much in it that was grave and earnest― their conversation naturally turning to the past rather than the future-that the Thurstons always felt themselves cheered

by Miss Dilworth's visits. She dropped her affectations in their presence, and became, for the time, a light-hearted, amiable, silly woman. She never arrived without a fresh budget of gossip, generally of slight importance, but made piquant by her rattling way of telling it.

"How thee does run on!" Friend Thurston would sometimes say, whereupon the sempstress would only toss her curls and run on all the more inveterately.

"Oh, I must tell you all about Lakeside and the new owner!" she exclaimed, as she settled herself into a chair.

Hannah Thurston could probably have told her more about Mr. Woodbury than she aiready knew; but it would have been unkind to cut short the eager narrative, and so Bute's report, with many additions and variations, was served out to them in chapters, during the afternoon.

CHAPTER V.

IN WHICH MR. WOODBURY HEARS A WOMAN SPEAK.

In his intercourse with the society of his new home, Woodbury found fewer distasteful circumstances to be overlooked, than he had at first feared. The novelty of the experience had its charm, and, as his mind recovered something of that active interest in men which he had almost unlearned, he was surprised to find how vital and absorbing his relations with them became. From the very earnestness of his views, however, he was reticent in the expression of them, and could with difficulty accustom himself to the discussion, in mixed society, of subjects which are usually only broached in the confidential intimacy of friends. Not merely "Fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute," but the privacy of individual faiths, doubts, and aspirations, became themes of discussion; even the shrinking sanctity of love was invaded, and the ability to converse fluently was taken by the community of Ptolemy as a sign of capacity to feel deeply on these subjects.

At the dinners and evening parties of the English, an intellectual as well as a social propriety is strictly observed, and the man who makes a habit of producing for general inspection, his religious convictions or his moral experiences, is speedily voted a bore. Maxwell Woodbury, whose long residence in Calcutta had fixed his habits, in this respect, was at first more amused than shocked, at the abandon with which spiritual intimacies were exchanged, in the society of Ptolemy. He soon learned, however, that much of this talk was merely a superficial sentimentalism, and that the true sanctities of the speakers'

hearts were violated more in appearance than in fact. Nevertheless, he felt no inclination to take part in conversation of this character, and fell into the habit of assuming a mystical, paradoxical tone, whenever he was forcibly drawn into the discussion. Sometimes, indeed, he was tempted to take the opposite side of the views advocated, simply in order to extort more reckless and vehement utterances from their defenders. It is not surprising, therefore, that his lack of earnestness, -as it seemed to the others-was attributed by many to a stolid indifference to humanity. Seth Wattles even went so far as to say: "I should not wonder if he had made his money in the accursed opium traffic."

The two topics which, for him, possessed an intrinsically repellant character, happened to be those which were at that time most actively discussed: Spiritualism and Women's Rights. He had seen the slight-of-hand of the Indian jugglers, far more wonderful than any feats supernaturally performed in the presence of mediums, and the professed communications from the world of spirits struck him as being more inane twaddle than that which fell from the lips of the living believers. He had not lived thirty-six years without as much knowledge of woman as a single man may profitably acquire; and the better he knew the sex, the more tender and profound became his regard. To him, in his strength, however, the relation of protector was indispensable; the rudest blows of life must first fall upon his shield. The idea of an independent strength, existing side by side with his, yet without requiring its support, was unnatural and repulsive. Aunt Dennison, in her noble self-abnegation as wife and mother, was more queenly in his eyes, than Mary Wollstonecraft or Madame de Staël. It was difficult for him to believe how any truly refined and feminine woman could claim for her sex a share in the special occupations of man.

There is always a perverse fate which attracts one into the very situations he wishes to avoid. On the evening when the Sewing-Union met at Merryfield's, Woodbury happened to be

drawn into a group which contained Mrs. Waldo, Hannah Thurston, and the host. The latter was speaking of a plan for a Female Medical College.

"It is the first step," said he, " and its success will overthrow the dynasty of ideas, under which woman has been crushed, as it were." The phrase: "dynasty of ideas," he had borrowed from a recent lecturer.

"Well”, said Mrs. Waldo, musingly, "if it went no further I should not have much to say against it, for we know that women are the best nurses, and they may make tolerable doctors. But I should prefer that somebody else than myself made the beginning."

"You are right," remarked Woodbury; "it is not pleasant to think of a woman standing at a dissecting-table, with a scalpel in her hand, and a quarter of a subject before her." Hannah Thurston shuddered inwardly, but at once took up the gauntlet. "Why not?" she asked. "Are not women capable of this, and more than this, for the sake of knowledge that will enable them to do good? Or is it because their minds are too weak to grapple with the mysteries of science?"

Woodbury, to avoid a discussion to which he was so strongly averse, assumed a gay, bantering tone. "In the presence of ladies," he said, smiling, and partly directing his words to Mrs. Waldo, "there is only one way of answering the latter question."

Hannah Thurston was of too earnest a nature to endure trifling-for such seemed his reply. Her gray eyes kindled with an emotion a very little milder than contempt. "So!" she exclaimed, "we must still endure the degradation of hollow compliment. We are still children, and our noise can

be quieted with sugar-plums!"

"I beg your pardon, Miss Thurston!" Woodbury gravely answered. "My apparent disrespect was but a shift to avoid discussing a subject which I have never seriously considered, and which, I will only say, seems to me a matter of instinct rather than of argument. Besides," he added, "I believe