"I'm indebted to you," he said, in his most gracious manner, "for a very kindly mention here. So small a donation was not worth the importance you give it, but you have put the matter so happily and gracefully that it may lead other men of means to do likewise at the various places of their summer sojourn. You editors are able to wield a great deal of influence." I bowed, and said I was glad the paragraph had been worded in a way not disagreeable to him. "Oh, it was good taste itself, I assure you, sir. It seemed the natural expression of your interest in that which interests your good friends here." When I came down to dinner I saw that there was an unwonted fire in Miss Warren's eyes and unusual color in her cheeks. Moreover, I imagined that her replies to the few remarks that I addressed to her were brief and constrained. "She is no dissembler," I thought; "something has gone wrong." After dinner I went to my room for a book, and as I came out I met her in the hall. "Mr. Morton," she said, with characteristic directness, "if you had given a sum toward a good object in a quiet country place, would you have been pleased to see the fact paraded before those having no natural interest in the matter?" "I have never had the power to be munificent, Miss Warren," I replied, with some embarrassment. "Please answer me," she insisted, with a little impatient tap of the floor with her foot. "No," I said bluntly. "Did you think it would be pleasing to me?" "Pardon me," I began, "that I did not sufficiently identify you with Mr. Hearn--" "What!" she interrupted, blushing hotly, "have I given any reason for not being identified with him?" "Not at all--not in one sense," I said bitterly. "Of course you are loyalty itself." She turned away so abruptly as to surprise me a little. "You had no more right to think it would be pleasing to him than to me," she resumed coldly. "Miss Warren," I said, after a moment, "don't turn your back on me. I won't quarrel with you, and I promise to do nothing of the kind again;" and I spoke gravely and a little sadly. "When you speak in that way you disarm me completely," she said, with one of the sudden illuminations of her face that I so loved to see; but I also noted that she had become very pale, and as my eyes met hers I thought I detected the old frightened look that I had seen when I had revealed my feelings too clearly after my illness. "She fears that I may again speak as I ought not," I thought; and therefore I bowed quietly and passed on. Mr. Hearn was reading the paper on the piazza. I took a chair and went out under the elm, not far away. In a few moments Miss Warren joined her affianced, and sat down with some light work. "Emily," I heard the banker say, as if the topic were uppermost in his mind, "I'd like to call your attention to this paragraph. I think our friend has written it with unusual good taste and grace, and I've taken pains to tell him so."