that, except for the topic of our conversations, there was in my
surroundings next to nothing to suggest what had befallen me.
Within a block of my home in the old Boston I could have found
social circles vastly more foreign to me. The speech of the Bostonians
of the twentieth century differs even less from that of their
cultured ancestors of the nineteenth than did that of the latter
from the language of Washington and Franklin, while the differences
between the style of dress and furniture of the two epochs
are not more marked than I have known fashion to make in the
time of one generation.


Edith Leete took little part in the conversation, but when
several times the magnetism of her beauty drew my glance to her
face, I found her eyes fixed on me with an absorbed intensity,
almost like fascination. It was evident that I had excited her
interest to an extraordinary degree, as was not astonishing,
supposing her to be a girl of imagination. Though I supposed
curiosity was the chief motive of her interest, it could but affect
me as it would not have done had she been less beautiful.

Dr. Leete, as well as the ladies, seemed greatly interested in
my account of the circumstances under which I had gone to
sleep in the underground chamber. All had suggestions to offer
to account for my having been forgotten there, and the theory
which we finally agreed on offers at least a plausible explanation,
although whether it be in its details the true one, nobody, of
course, will ever know. The layer of ashes found above the
chamber indicated that the house had been burned down. Let it
be supposed that the conflagration had taken place the night I