was unsupposable that he would ever marry; nobody ever had
supposed it.

"Jasper Dale never so much as THOUGHT about a woman," Carlisle
oracles declared. Oracles, however, are not always to be trusted.

One day Mrs. Griggs went away from the Dale place with a very
curious story, which she diligently spread far and wide. It made
a good deal of talk, but people, although they listened eagerly,
and wondered and questioned, were rather incredulous about it.
They thought Mrs. Griggs must be drawing considerably upon her
imagination; there were not lacking those who declared that she
had invented the whole account, since her reputation for strict
veracity was not wholly unquestioned.

Mrs. Griggs's story was as follows:--

One day she found the door of the west gable unlocked. She went
in, expecting to see bare walls and a collection of odds and ends.
Instead she found herself in a finely furnished room. Delicate
lace curtains hung before the small, square, broad-silled windows.
The walls were adorned with pictures in much finer taste than Mrs.
Griggs could appreciate. There was a bookcase between the windows
filled with choicely bound books. Beside it stood a little table
with a very dainty work-basket on it. By the basket Mrs. Griggs
saw a pair of tiny scissors and a silver thimble. A wicker
rocker, comfortable with silk cushions, was near it. Above the
bookcase a woman's picture hung--a water-colour, if Mrs. Griggs
had but known it--representing a pale, very sweet face, with
large, dark eyes and a wistful expression under loose masses of