of the evident superiority of a nature capable of such deep feeling—­uninfluenced by those baser distractions which occupied Brace, Crosby, and Winslow.  This phase passed into a settled conviction that some woman was at the root of his trouble, and responsible for it.  With an instinctive distrust of her own sex, she was satisfied that it must be either a misplaced or unworthy attachment, and that the unknown woman was to blame.  This second phase—­which hovered between compassion and resentment—­suddenly changed to the latter—­the third phase of her feelings.  Miss Keene became convinced that Mr. Hurlstone had a settled aversion to herself.  Why and wherefore, she did not attempt to reason, yet she was satisfied that from the first he disliked her.  His studious reserve on the Excelsior, compared with the attentions of the others, ought then to have convinced her of the fact; and there was no doubt now that his present discontent could be traced to the unfortunate circumstances that brought them together.  Having given herself up to that idea, she vacillated between a strong impulse to inform him that she knew his real feelings and an equally strong instinct to avoid him hereafter entirely.  The result was a feeble compromise.  On the ground that Mr. Hurlstone could “scarcely be expected to admire her inferior performances,” she declined to invite him with Father Esteban to listen to her pupils.  Father Esteban took a huge pinch of snuff, examined Miss Keene attentively, and smiled a sad smile.  The next day he begged Hurlstone to take a volume of old music to Miss Keene with his compliments.  Hurlstone did so, and for some reason exerted himself to be agreeable.  As he made no allusion to her rudeness, she presumed he did not know of it, and speedily forgot it herself.  When he suggested a return visit to the boy choir, with whom he occasionally practiced, she blushed and feared she had scarcely the time.  But she came with Mrs. Markham, some consciousness, and a visible color!

And then, almost without her knowing how or why, and entirely unexpected and unheralded, came a day so strangely and unconsciously happy, so innocently sweet and joyous, that it seemed as if all the other days of her exile had only gone before to create it, and as if it—­and it alone—­were a sufficient reason for her being there.  A day full of gentle intimations, laughing suggestions, childlike surprises and awakenings; a day delicious for the very incompleteness of its vague happiness.  And this remarkable day was simply marked in Mrs. Markham’s diary as follows:—­“Went with E. to Indian village; met Padre and J. H. J. H. actually left shell and crawled on beach with E. E. chatty.”