"Why should I wish to avoid her? If she amuses me, diverts my mind, beguiles my pain, or more dreary apathy, why not let her exert her power to the utmost and make herself useful? Yes, but she will try to do more than amuse. Well, suppose she does; one can coolly foil such efforts. Not so sure of that. If I were dealing with a man I could, but one must be worse than a clod to hear her sing and not feel. I suppose I made a weak fool of myself before them all last night, and they thought I was on the eve of conversion. I half wish I were, or on the eve of anything else. Any change from my present state would seem a relief. But a man cannot go into these things like an impulsive girl, even if he believes in them, which is more than I do. I seem to have fallen into a state of moral and physical imbecility, in which I can only doubt, suffer, and chafe. "I won't avoid her. I will study and analyze her character. I doubt whether she is as good, fresh, and original as she seems. Such girls exist only in moral stories, and I've met but few even there. I will solve her mystery. Probably it is not a very deep one, and after a day or two she will become an old story and life resume its normal monotony;" and he at once descended the stairs to carry out his purpose. The children were just coming from the sitting-room where they had their school, exclaiming, "Oh, aunty, what shall we do this awful rainy day?" "Wait till I have given some directions to Zibbie, and I will read you a fairy story, and then you can go up into the garret until dinner-time." "May I listen to the fairy story also?" asked Walter. Miss Walton looked up with a smile and said, "You must be half-desperate from your imprisonment to accept of such solace. But if you can wait till I have kept my word to the children I will read something more to your taste." "I think I should like to hear how a fairy story sounds once again after all these years." "As Shakespeare may sound to us some time in the future," she replied, smiling. "I can't believe we shall ever outgrow Shakespeare," he said. "I can believe it, but cannot understand how it is possible. As yet I am only growing up to Shakespeare." "You seem very ready to believe what you cannot understand." "And that is woman's way, I suppose you would like to add," she answered, smiling over her shoulder, as she turned to the kitchen department. "You men have a general faith that there will be dinner at two o'clock, though you understand very little how it comes to pass, and if you are disappointed the best of your sex have not fortitude enough to wait patiently, so I must delay no longer to propitiate the kitchen divinity." "There!" he said, "I have but crossed her steps in the hall, and she has stirred me and set my nerves tingling like an October breeze. She is a witch." After a few minutes Miss Walton entered. Each of the children called for a story, and both clamored for their favorites.