A visitor at such an hour, of the male sex, without special provocation, without social pretext, was an event in the life of the desolate spinster.  Could it be—­No, it could not—­and yet—­and yet!  Miss Cynthia threw back the rather common-looking but comfortable shawl which covered her shoulders, and showed her quite presentable figure, arrayed with a still lingering thought of that remote contingency which might yet offer itself at some unexpected moment; she adjusted the carefully plaited cap, which was not yet of the lasciate ogni speranza pattern, and as she obeyed these instincts of her sex, she smiled a welcome to the respectable, learned, and independent bachelor.  Mr. Gridley had a frosty but kindly age before him, with a score or so of years to run, which it was after all not strange to fancy might be rendered more cheerful by the companionship of a well-conserved and amiably disposed woman, if any such should happen to fall in his way.

That smile came very near disconcerting the plot of Master Byles Gridley.  He had come on an inquisitor’s errand, his heart secure, as he thought, against all blandishments, his will steeled to break down all resistance.  He had come armed with an instrument of torture worse than the thumb-screw, worse than the pulleys which attempt the miracle of adding a cubit to the stature, worse than the brazier of live coals brought close to the naked soles of the feet,—­an instrument which, instead of trifling with the nerves, would clutch all the nerve-centres and the heart itself in its gripe, and hold them until it got its answer, if the white lips had life enough left to shape one.  And here was this unfortunate maiden lady smiling at him, setting her limited attractions in their best light, pleading with him in that natural language which makes any contumacious bachelor feel as guilty as Cain before any single woman.  If Mr. Gridley had been alone, he would have taken a good sniff at his own bottle of sal volatile; for his kind heart sunk within him as he thought of the errand upon which he had come.  It would not do to leave the subject of his vivisection under any illusion as to the nature of his designs.

“Good evening, Miss Badlam,” he said, “I have come to visit you on a matter of business.”

What was the internal panorama which had unrolled itself at the instant of his entrance, and which rolled up as suddenly at the sound of his serious voice and the look of his grave features?  It cannot be reproduced, though pages were given to it; for some of the pictures were near, and some were distant; some were clearly seen, and some were only hinted; some were not recognized in the intellect at all, and yet they were implied, as it were, behind the others.  Many times we have all found ourselves glad or sorry, and yet we could not tell what thought it was that reflected the sunbeam or cast the shadow.  Took into Cynthia’s suddenly exalted consciousness and see the picture, actual and potential, unroll