“Thank you.”  She hurried off to wrap up for the ride and acquaint Mrs. Watson with the cause of her temporary absence.  On re-entering the study she found the doctor lying on the sofa, with one hand over his eyes.  Without removing it he tossed a letter to her, saying: 

“There is a letter from Heidelberg.  I had almost forgotten it.  You will have time to read it; the buggy is not ready.”  He moved his fingers slightly, so as to see her distinctly, while she tore off the envelope and perused it.  At first she looked pleased; then the black eyebrows met over the nose, and as she refolded it there was a very decided curl in the compressed upper lip.  She put it into her pocket without comment.

“Eugene is well, I suppose?” said the doctor, still shading his eyes.

“Yes, sir; quite well.”

“Does he seem to be improving his advantages?”

“I should judge not, from the tone of this letter.”

“What does it indicate?”

“That he thinks of settling down into mercantile life on his return; as if he needed to go to Germany to learn to keep books.”  She spoke hastily and with much chagrin.

“And why not?  Germany is par excellence the land of book-making, and book-reading; why not of bookkeeping?”

“German proficiency is not the question, sir.”

Dr. Hartwell smiled, and, passing his fingers through his hair, replied: 

“You intend to annihilate that plebeian project of his, then?”

“His own will must govern him, sir; over that I have no power.”

“Still you will use your influence in favor of a learned profession?”

“Yes, sir; if I have any.”

“Take care your ambitious pride does not ruin you both.  There is the buggy.  Be so good as to give me my fur gauntlets out of the drawer of my desk.  That will do; come.”

The ride was rather silent.  Beulah spoke several times, but was answered in a manner which informed her that her guardian was in a gloomy mood and did not choose to talk.  He was to her as inexplicable as ever.  She felt that the barrier which divided them, instead of melting away with long and intimate acquaintance, had strengthened and grown impenetrable.  Kind but taciturn, she knew little of his opinions on any of the great questions which began to agitate her own mind.  For rather more than three years they had spent their evenings together; she in studying, he in reading or writing.  Of his past life she knew absolutely nothing, for no unguarded allusion to it ever escaped his lips.  As long as she had lived in his house, he had never mentioned his wife’s name, and but for his sister’s words she would have been utterly ignorant of his marriage.  Whether the omission was studied, or merely the result of abstraction, she could only surmise.  Once, when sitting around the fire, a piece of crape fell upon the hearth from the shrouded portrait.  He stooped down, picked it up, and, without glancing at the picture,