Long after the sound of the carriage wheels had died away John stood motionless, beholding again as in a vision the earnest face and wonderful grey eyes.  Then he stooped for his hat which had fallen to the ground when he had taken her hand in his.  As he did so, he saw a dainty bit of lawn lying on the other side of the gate.  He put his hand between the bars and caught it just as the breeze was about to blow it away.  He looked at the name which was delicately traced in one corner with a strange sense of pleasure:  Evadne.

“It fits her,” he said to himself.  “There’s a sweet elusiveness about her.  She makes me think of a bird.  She’ll let you come just so far, until she gets to trust you, and then you’ll have all her sweetness.”

He drew a long breath which was strangely like a sigh, and, folding the handkerchief carefully, put it in his pocket.

“Pitty lady,” murmured little Nan drowsily, and John caught her up and kissed her,—­he could not have told why.

* * * * *

“I do think Dorothy Bruce is the kindest creature!” exclaimed Marion one Saturday morning as they lingered with a pleasant sense of leisure over the breakfast table.  “She offered to give up the whole of to-day to me.  I thought it was lovely when she works so hard all the week.”

“Give it up to you.  Why, what do you mean, Marion?  We never have anything to do with her in school.  What could you possibly want of her here?”

“Oh, it is that doleful algebra,” sighed Marion.  “It is utterly impossible for me to get it into my head, and Dorothy takes to it like a duck to water, and she is a born teacher.  Madame Castle says her aptitude for imparting knowledge amounts to genius.  You must allow it was kind of her, Isabelle.”

Isabelle shrugged her shoulders.  “Self-interested, most likely.  That sort of people would do anything to obtain a foothold.”

“Oh, Isabelle!” cried Evadne.  “Do have a little faith in your fellow-man!  Why should you set yourself up on a pinnacle and despise everyone who is poor, when the father of us all hoed for a living?”

Louis looked up from the paper he was reading.  “There are two things Isabelle has no faith in, Evadne.  The Declaration of Independence and the book she loaned you.  One says all men are free and equal,—­the other that God has made of one blood all the nations of the earth.  Her Serene Highness objects to this.  She will have the blue blood come in somewhere, though where she gets it from heaven only knows!”

“Louis, I do wish you would not be so radical!” Isabelle said, peevishly.  “You must admit there is such a thing as culture and refinement.”

“Certainly I admit it.  The only thing I object to is that you talk as if you possessed a monopoly of the article, whereas I hold that it is just a question of environment.  It is no thanks to you that you were not born a Hottentot or a Choctaw.  Give yourself the same ancestors and surroundings as your chimney-sweep and wherein would you be superior to him?  And when it comes to ancestry, by the way, probably Miss Bruce can trace back to some of the grand old Highland chiefs who covered themselves with glory long before the lineage of Hildreth had emerged from obscurity.”