“Dr. White has theories; he has attached one to me.  Nature has adjusted us nicely, he thinks, with fine strings; if we laugh too much, or cry too long, a knot slips somewhere, which ’all the king’s men’ can’t take up again.  Perhaps he judges women by his deformed wife.  Men do judge that way, I suppose, and then pride themselves on their experience, commencing their speeches about us, with ’you women.’  I’ll answer your question, though,—­there’s a blight creeping over me, or a mildew.”

“Is there a worm i’ the bud?”

“There may be one at the root; my top is green and flourishing, isn’t it?”

“You expect to be in a state of beatitude always.  What is a mote of dust in another’s eye, in yours is a cataract.  You are mad at your blindness, and fight the air because you can’t see.”

“I feel that I see very little, especially when I understand the clearness of your vision.  Your good sense is monstrous.”

“It will come right somehow, with you; when twenty years are wasted, maybe,” she answered sadly.  “There’s the first bell!  I haven’t a word yet of my rhetoric lesson,” opening her book and chanting, “’Man, thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.’  Are you going to Professor Simpson’s class?” shutting it again.  “I know the new dance”; and she began to execute it on the walk.  The door of a house opposite us opened, and a tall youth came out, hat in hand.  Without evincing surprise, he advanced toward Helen, gravely dancing the same step; they finished the figure with unmoved countenances.  “Come now,” I said, taking her arm.  He then made a series of bows to us, retreating to the house, with his face toward us, till he reached the door and closed it.  He was tall and stout, with red hair, and piercing black eyes, and looked about twenty-three.  “Who can that be, Helen?”

“A stranger; probably some young man come to Dr. Price, or a law student.  He is new here, at all events.  His is not an obscure face; if it had been seen, we should have known it.”

“We shall meet him, then.”

And we did, the very next day, which was Wednesday, in the hall, where we went to hear the boys declaim.  I saw him, sitting by himself in a chair, instead of being with the classes.  He was in a brown study, unaware that he was observed; both hands were in his pockets, and his legs were stretched out till his pantaloons had receded up his boots, whose soles he knocked together, oblivious of the noise they made.  In spite of his red hair, I thought him handsome, with his Roman nose and firm, clefted chin.  Helen and I were opposite him at the lower part of the hall, but he did not see us, till the first boy mounted the platform, and began to spout one of Cicero’s orations; then he looked up, and a smile spread over his face.  He withdrew his hands from his pockets, updrew his legs, and surveyed the long row of girls opposite, beginning at the head of the hall.  As his eyes reached us, a flash of recognition shot