A Pair of Patient Lovers

f the lovely old Burymouth streets. Something equivalent had been in his mind and on his tongue at every dramatic instant of the af

round; but the fine hallway with its broad low stairway, the stately drawing-room with its carving, the library with its panelling and portraits, and the dining-room with its

ch houses built; and he said the same thing of the other Burymouth houses which Birkwall show

, she looked most distinctly descended from ancestors, and not merely the daughter of a father and mother, as most women do. Gaites said as much to Birkwall, and when they got home Birkwall repeated it to his wife, without injuring Gaites with her. If he saw what Birkwall had meant in marrying her, and settling down to his literary lif

er heard better talk than that of these sequestered ladies, who were so well bred and so well read, so humorous and so dignified, who loved to laugh and who loved to think. It was all like something in a pleasant book, and Gaites was not altogether to blame if it went to his head, and after the talk had been of Burym

s. "I don't wonder you fell in love with the na

etly a girl because she would never see thirty-nine again, "I should s

responded, with a well-affected air of passion

use and explain any sort of dereliction; and then the talk went on about Kent Harbor till Mrs. Birkwall asked, generally, as if

ed in bringing the talk back to Phyllis Desmond's piano again, and in urging its pursuit upon Gaites, as something he owed to romance; at least he ought

d itself upon some fresh evidence which one of the ladies recollected and offered; and Gaites's chance passed. When it came again he had no longer the wish to seize it. A lingering soreness from his experience with that young girl made itself felt in his nether consciousness. He forbore the more easily because, mixed with this pain, was a certain insecurity as to her quality which he was afraid might impart itsel

rted for his train, he parted with Mrs. Birkwall as old friends as he was with her husband; and he completed her conquest by running back to her from the gate, and asking, with a great air

aving her hand to them till they were out of sight behind the corner of the high board fence, ov

Kent Harbor, and insisted upon carrying it as they walked up and down the platform together at the station. It seemed that the train from Boston which the Kent Harbor train was to connect with was ten minutes late, and after some turns they prolonge

ed from the parent train, which had left it not only orphaned on this siding, but apparently disabled; for Gaites heard the men talking about not having cut it out a minu

d inscribed with the name and address of Miss Phyllis Desmond. He remained watching it, while the men got it on the platform, so wholly inattentive to Birkwall's plot that the most besotted young aut

ght you were faking the name last night; but I didn't want t

most toothful smile, and he laughed fo

Why, Gaites, you'll be the tea-table talk for a week; you'll be married to that girl before you know it. What is the use of flying in the face of Providence? Come! There's time enough to get a ticke

, of fatality, which flattered while it awed him; and he could not be easy till he had asked one of the freight-handlers what had happened to the car. He got an answer-flu

ent Harbor train backs down after this goes out. Don't worry about the piano. I'll find out wha

demanded and given, to come again, they passed the time till the