He must come into closer relations with her, so as to withdraw her thoughts from this fellow, and to find out more exactly what was the state of her affections, if she had any.  So he began to court her company again, to propose riding with her, to sing to her, to join her whenever she was strolling about the grounds, to make himself agreeable, according to the ordinary understanding of that phrase, in every way which seemed to promise a chance for succeeding in that amiable effort.

The girl treated him more capriciously than ever.  She would be sullen and silent, or she would draw back fiercely at some harmless word or gesture, or she would look at him with her eyes narrowed in such a strange way and with such a wicked light in them that Dick swore to himself they were too much for him, and would leave her for the moment.  Yet she tolerated him, almost as a matter of necessity, and sometimes seemed to take a kind of pleasure in trying her power upon him.  This he soon found out, and humored her in the fancy that she could exercise a kind of fascination over him, though there were times in which he actually felt an influence he could not understand, an effect of some peculiar expression about her, perhaps, but still centring in those diamond eyes of hers which it made one feel so curiously to look into.

Whether Elsie saw into his object or not was more than he could tell.  His idea was, after having conciliated the good-will of all about her as far as possible, to make himself first a habit and then a necessity with the girl,—­not to spring any trap of a declaration upon her until tolerance had grown into such a degree of inclination as her nature was like to admit.  He had succeeded in the first part of his plan.  He was at liberty to prolong his visit at his own pleasure.  This was not strange; these three persons, Dudley Venner, his daughter, and his nephew, represented all that remained of an old and honorable family.  Had Elsie been like other girls, her father might have been less willing to entertain a young fellow like Dick as an inmate; but he had long outgrown all the slighter apprehensions which he might have had in common with all parents, and followed rather than led the imperious instincts of his daughter.  It was not a question of sentiment, but of life and death, or more than that,—­some dark ending, perhaps, which would close the history of his race with disaster and evil report upon the lips of all coming generations.

As to the thought of his nephew’s making love to his daughter, it had almost passed from his mind.  He had been so long in the habit of looking at Elsie as outside of all common influences and exceptional in the law of her nature, that it was difficult for him to think of her as a girl to be fallen in love with.  Many persons are surprised, when others court their female relatives; they know them as good young or old women enough,—­aunts, sisters, nieces, daughters, whatever they may be,—­but