the nephew took as much pride in his inheritance as though it had
been his own work. Indeed, he gradually came to regard it as
such, and to feel a sense of personal complacency when he chanced
on any reference to the Gryce Americana. Anxious as he was to
avoid personal notice, he took, in the printed mention of his
name, a pleasure so exquisite and excessive that it seemed a
compensation for his shrinking from publicity.

To enjoy the sensation as often as possible, he subscribed to all
the reviews dealing with book-collecting in general, and American
history in particular, and as allusions to his library abounded
in the pages of these journals, which formed his only reading, he
came to regard himself as figuring prominently in the public eye,
and to enjoy the thought of the interest which would be excited
if the persons he met in the street, or sat among in travelling,
were suddenly to be told that he was the possessor of the Gryce
Americana.

Most timidities have such secret compensations, and Miss Bart was
discerning enough to know that the inner vanity is generally in
proportion to the outer self-depreciation. With a more confident
person she would not have dared to dwell so long on one topic, or
to show such exaggerated interest in it; but she had rightly
guessed that Mr. Gryce's egoism was a thirsty soil, requiring
constant nurture from without. Miss Bart had the gift of
following an undercurrent of thought while she appeared to be
sailing on the surface of conversation; and in this case her
mental excursion took the form of a rapid survey of Mr. Percy
Gryce's future as combined with her own. The Gryces were from
Albany, and but lately introduced to the metropolis, where the