“But the sun is so trying!” put in Miss Lester.  “Just think how much more becoming candle-light is!  There is not one of my dresses which would stand a broad sunbeam.”

“I see,” said Mr. Stuart, “that, when Mr. Desmond has perfected his studies, we shall be able to roof over the whole of Boston with our woven sunlight by day and gas-light by night, quite independent of fogs and uncertain east-winds.”

So much of the dinner-conversation dwelt upon what was supposed to be interesting to me, and a part of my profession.  It was laggingly done; for presently the talk fell into an easier flow,—­a wonder about Mrs. This, and speculation concerning Mr. That.  Mr. Blank had gone to Europe with half his family, and some of them knew why he had taken the four elder children, and others wondered why he had left the rest behind.  I was talked into a sort of spasmodic interest about a certain Maria, who was at the ball the night before, but could not be at the dinner to-day.  In an effort to show me why she would be especially charming to me, her personal appearance, the style of her conversation and dress, her manner of life, all were pulled to pieces, and discussed, dissected, and classified, in the same way as I would handle one of the Composite.

Miss Stuart spoke but little.  She fluttered gayly over the livelier conversation, but seemed glad to fall back into a sort of wearied repose, where she appeared to be living in a higher atmosphere than the rest of us.  This air of repose the others seemed to be trying to reach, when they got no farther than dulness; and some of the gentlemen, I thought, made too great efforts in their attempts to appear bored.  Especially one of them exerted himself greatly to gape so often in the face of a lady with whom he was striving to keep up an appearance of conversation, that the exertion itself must have wearied him.

After the ladies had left, the Chemist seated himself by me, that he might, as he openly said, get out of me the secret of my sunshine.  The more I disowned the sunshine, the more he felt sure that I possessed some secret clue to it.  I need not say, that, in all my talk with these gentlemen, I had constantly tried to show that I could claim no influence in setting the sun’s rays among the green carpeted leaves.

I was urged to stay many days in Boston, was treated kindly, and invited here and there.  I grew to feel almost at home at Mr. Stuart’s.  He was pleased to wonder at the education which I had given myself, as he called it.  I sat many long mornings in Miss Stuart’s drawing-room, and she had the power of making me talk of many things which had always been hidden even from myself.  It was hardly a sympathy with me which seemed to unlock my inner thoughts; it was as though she had already looked through them, and that I must needs bring them out for her use.  That same glance which I have already spoken of, which seemed to pass over and through me, invited me to say in words what I felt she was beginning to read with her eyes.  We went together, the day before I was to leave town, to the Gallery of Paintings.