undisguised attentions of the handsome young Marylander. Instead of
fixing her eyes steadily on him, as she used to look upon the Little
Gentleman, she would turn them away, as if to avoid his own. They often
went to church together, it is true; but nobody, of course, supposes
there is any relation between religious sympathy and those wretched
"sentimental" movements of the human heart upon which it is commonly
agreed that nothing better is based than society, civilization,
friendship, the relation of husband and wife, and of parent and child,
and which many people must think were singularly overrated by the
Teacher of Nazareth, whose whole life, as I said before, was full of
sentiment, loving this or that young man, pardoning this or that
sinner, weeping over the dead, mourning for the doomed city, blessing,
and perhaps kissing, the little children,--so that the Gospels are
still cried over almost as often as the last work of fiction!

But one fine June morning there rumbled up to the door of our
boarding-house a hack containing a lady inside and a trunk on the
outside. It was our friend the lady-patroness of Miss Iris, the same
who had been called by her admiring pastor "The Model of all the
Virtues." Once a week she had written a letter, in a rather formal
hand, but full of good advice, to her young charge. And now she had
come to carry her away, thinking that she had learned all she was
likely to learn under her present course of teaching. The Model,
however, was to stay awhile,--a week, or more,--before they should
leave together.

Iris was obedient, as she was bound to be. She was respectful,
grateful, as a child is with a just, but not tender parent. Yet
something was wrong. She had one of her trances, and became
statue-like, as before, only the day after the Model's arrival. She was