It was about two weeks after this that Cahill began to realize just how deeply in love he was with Edith Minot. She had interested him from the first, and her very dissimilarity from most of the society girls he knew, the nobility and seriousness of her nature beneath a rather cold and conventional manner, and the young purity of her presence had struck him as being the finest and most attractive things he had ever seen. He had been with her a great deal in the two weeks she had spent with his sister, and he had had a great many opportunities of finding out just how superior she was to most girls, how witty and clever she could be, and what native dignity and fine simplicity of character she possessed, and how sincere and truthful she was. They had gone together to teas and receptions, and small dances, and the numerous post-Easter weddings, and the fact that she was his sister’s guest made it very easy for him to see a great deal of her without any gossip or talk. But delightful as all that had been, he was glad now that she was going back in a few days to her own people, and that he could go down in a decently short time and tell her what he could not tell her in his father’s house and which he had found so hard to withhold. The uncertainty in which he was as to whether she cared for him or not made him restless and very properly despondent, although he sometimes fancied that she was less cold to him than to the others, and that if she talked with him about certain things of particular interest to her, it was because she valued his opinion and friendship. And he was much pleased and very flattered when she appealed to him about her different schemes, and was even ready to sacrifice their last day to the college settlement. “I really must go to Tyler Street to-day,” Miss Minot had said. “It’s my last chance. I have been very selfish, and have been having entirely too good a time. Why, I haven’t even seen my boys or heard the Prima Donna Contessa!” She turned and smiled at Cahill as she spoke. “By the way,” she continued, “why don’t you and Louise come with me and hear her sing? I have sent her a note telling her to meet me at the settlement at four o’clock, and I know she will be only too pleased to sing for us. It is quite wonderful, you know.” “Of course we will go,” assented Miss Cahill briskly, while her brother aquiesced cheerfully, if less enthusiastically. It occurred to him that it would be as well for him not to be alone with Miss Minot any more, if he intended to hold to his resolution of not speaking just yet.