"She knows where I am," he would tell his unreasoning self. "How easily she could send me some little sign, but, such as she never would, even though she cared." All this time Marian was hidden away in a suburban town ten miles from Boston, in her father's country home, though spending much time in the city. Why did not one or the other of their good angels cause them to turn their eyes in the right direction that day they almost brushed against each other in the crowd? Through the year she had stoically crushed out pleasant remembrances of the brief acquaintance, never allowing the thought that possibly they might meet again, and yet she always searched an audience with a keener interest than had been her wont. It might just be possible, but how preposterous, after all! He lived far away in a Western city. Why should he come to Boston? 'Tis true, too, that on Christmas night she indulged herself in a bit of dreaming, lingering purposely at her chamber window, looking out on the white world until the clock in the steeple should chime out twelve, feeling, unconsciously, that she was keeping an indefinable tryst with some mythical being by so doing. She, too, went in memory over the walk and the poem, recalled the excellent rendering of the few lines recited, and then being dimly conscious that it would be the most delightful thing in life to go on and on in an interminable walk, with that one voice sounding always in her ears, she brought her reverie to an abrupt ending, drew her curtains and shut out the witching moonbeams with tantalizing memories,—like a sensible maiden that she was. Mr. Lynde's book had been diligently studied by her, partly because it was his, and for the reason that it was in rather a different line from anything she had read. She did not at once comprehend its subtle logic, and her ambition required that she should. Her well-trained mind was not long in discovering that this book was not all gems and pearls, as she had supposed when the fascinating rhetoric attracted her. There were half-truths, skeptical suggestions, and flings at doctrines dear to Christian hearts. It filled her with sorrow and surprise that such high, beautiful thoughts should be so marred. Did Mr. Lynde believe these things? From a remark he dropped, she half-feared he did. From that time his name came into her daily prayer as she asked that her little books might not be lost, but be seed that should spring up and bear fruit. It was not in a crowded assembly, nor on the city streets, nor on a railroad train, that Mr. Lynde finally found his treasure. He was returning from a trip in the Northwest, and near the end of a day's travel was obliged to wait at a small town a few hours, in order to take an express train. Finding the time hang heavily, he walked out and turned his steps into a little foot path that led out into the country.