There was something so preposterous in this desperate match-making between people whom they had never seen, that Colonel Prowley and his sister had taken into their hands, that it really made a greater impression upon me than if the parties had been less unlikely to come together.  A Professor of Calisthenics!  Could anything be more unpromising?  Yet, when my friend copied for me some extracts from the lady’s letters that were sensible and feminine, I thought how odd it would be, if something should come of it, after all.  I often found myself skipping Colonel Prowley’s accounts of old Doctor Dastick, Mrs. Hunesley, and other great people of his town, and pondering upon the notices of his Western correspondent.  I began to have a mysterious presentiment—­which, in view of the calisthenics, I could not explain—­that we might be not unadapted to each other.  In any case, the lady’s fine family-name was a recommendation that I knew how to appreciate.  They have very young professors out West, I thought, and this is merely a temporary position; besides, I had a friend who married a female physician, and the match has turned out a very happy one.  So I played with the idea, half in jest and half seriously, and looked forward with much interest to my visit to Foxden.

CHAPTER II

It was near noon, on an August day, when the train left me at the Foxden station.  Upon casting my eyes about to see what was to be done next, I observed a very shabby and rickety carryall, with the legend “Railway-Omnibus” freshly painted upon its side.

“It is better than a mile and a half up to Colonel Prowley’s; but I calculate I can take you there, after I’ve left this lady,” responded the proprietor of this turnout, in reply to a question of mine.

“But I want to go to Colonel Prowley’s, too,” said a feminine voice at my side.

“Well, now that’s complete,” acquiesced the driver.  “I’ll just go get the baggage, and put you both through right away.”

Of course I turned to view my companion.  She was a middle-aged lady, something disordered in dress and hair, with a sharply marked countenance, and that diffusive sort of eye that seems to take one in as a speck which breaks the view of more interesting objects lying on the verge of the horizon.  Yet her face was dimpled by those indescribable changing lines which indicate that a cessation of impulse has not marked the wearer’s retreat from youth, and make us feel anew how blessed a thing it is for the character to keep our impulses strong within us, and to be strong ourselves in their restraint.

I was doubting whether to begin those little shivers and sidelings with which people who feel that they ought to be acquainted, but have nobody to introduce them, endeavor to supply the deficiency, when the lady abruptly pronounced my name, and inquired if I responded thereto.

“I thought it must be you,” she said, on being satisfied regarding my identity, “for the Colonel wrote me that he expected you about this time.  I feel we shall become friends.  I am Miss Hurribattle.”