self-satisfied in so far as it was not in the least the Boston of her
fond preconceptions. It was, doubtless, no more the real Boston we know
and love, than either of the others: and it perplexed her more than it
need, even if it had not been mere phantasm. It made her suspicious of
Mr. Arbuton's behavior towards her, and observant of little things that
might very well have otherwise escaped her. The bantering humor, the
light-hearted trust and self-reliance with which she had once met him
deserted her, and only returned fitfully when some accident called her
out of herself, and made her forget the differences that she now too
plainly saw in their ways of thinking and feeling. It was a greater and
greater effort to place herself in sympathy with him; she relaxed into a
languid self-contempt, as if she had been playing a part, when she
succeeded. "Sometimes, Fanny," she said, now, after a long pause,
speaking in behalf of that other girl she had been thinking of, "it
seems to me as if Mr. Arbuton were all gloves and slim umbrella,--the
mere husk of well dressed culture and good manners. His looks _do_
promise everything; but O dear me! I should be sorry for any one that
was in love with him. Just imagine some girl meeting with such a man,
and taking a fancy to him! I suppose she never would quite believe but
that he must somehow be what she first thought him, and she would go
down to her grave believing that she had failed to understand him. What
a curious story it would make!"

"Then, why don't you write it, Kitty?" asked Mrs. Ellison. "No one could
do it better."

Kitty flushed quickly; then she smiled: "O, I don't think I could do it
at all. It wouldn't be a very easy story to work out. Perhaps he might
never do anything positively disagreeable enough to make anybody condemn
him. The only way you could show his character would be to have her do