the ascendant, and the quiet city home seemed the centre of a new and strange world.  One other thing she remembered in that initial chapter of her life,—­the kindly glances that Graydon Muir bent on the pale crescent of a girl who sat opposite to him.  Even as a child she knew that the handsome young fellow was not secretly laughing at or criticising her, and before dinner was over she had ventured upon a shy, grateful glance, in reward for his good-humored efforts to break the ice.

There had, in truth, been no ice to break.  The child was merely like a plant that had grown in the shade, and to her the strong, healthful youth was sunshine.  His smile warmed and vivified her chilled nature, his hearty words and manner were bracing to her over-sensitive and timid soul, and his unaffected, unforced kindness was so constant that she gradually came to regard it as one of the best certainties of her life.  She soon learned, however, that behind his sunny good-nature was a fiery and impatient spirit, ready to manifest itself if he was chafed beyond a certain point, and so a slight element of fear was mingled with her childlike affection.

He had sufficient tact to understand Madge’s diffidence, and he knew that their family life would soon banish it.  He welcomed this pale slip of a girl to their home circle because it gave him pleasure to pet and rally such a wraith into something like genuine existence.  He also hoped that eventually she would become a source of amusement to him.  Nor was he disappointed.  Madge’s mind was not colorless, if her face was, and she gradually began to respond to his mirthfulness, and to take an interest, intelligent for a child, in what occupied his thoughts.  Kindness creates an atmosphere in which the most sensitive and diffident natures develop and reveal themselves, and Madge Alden, who might easily have been chilled into a reticent and dispirited girl, eventually manifested an unusual versatility of fancy and thought, acquiring also no slight power of expression.

Thus Graydon obtained his reward.  His brother was a grave and silent man, to whom few themes could be broached except those of business and the events and politics of the day in their relation to trade.  His sister-in-law was absorbed in household and family cares, but Madge’s great black eyes responded with quick appreciation to all that he said, and their merry nonsense often provoked a smile upon even the face of Mr. Muir.  The good-natured sympathy of the young man therefore passed gradually into a genuine fraternal regard, and he rarely came home of an evening without bringing flowers, bonbons, or some other evidence that he had remembered her.  Unconsciously to herself, he became more to her than her sister, who was indulgent in the extreme, but not very demonstrative.  Her shyness disappeared, and his caresses seemed as natural as those of an elder brother, in which light she regarded him.