"Well, of all the crazy creatures!" said she. "Why, he has only met you once. He's mad! No, he isn't--he's a Grangerson. I know them." She stopped short and re-read the letter, turned it about and then laid it down. "Just as if he'd known you for years. And you scarcely spoke to him. Did he _say_ anything to you as if he cared for you?" "No, he didn't," said Phyl quite truthfully. "Did he look at you as if he cared for you?" "No," replied the other, dreading another question. But Miss Pinckney did not put it. She could not conceive a man kissing a girl who had never betrayed his feelings for her by word or glance. "Well, it gets me. It does indeed; acting like a dumb creature and then writing this-- Do you care for _him_?" "I--I--no--you see, I don't know him--much." "Well, he seems to know you pretty well, there's no doubt about one thing, Silas Grangerson can make up his mind pretty quick. He won't come to Vernons, won't he? Well, maybe it's better for him not, for I've no patience with oddities. That's what's wrong with him, he's an oddity, and it's those sort of people make the trouble in life--they're worse than whisky and cards for bringing unhappiness. Years and years and years ago--I'm telling you this though I've never told it to any one else--Seth Grangerson, Silas's father, seemed to care for me, not much, still he seemed to care. Then one day all at once he came into the room where I was, through the window, and told me to come off and get married to him, wanted me to go away right off. I was a fool in those days, but not all a fool, and when he tried to put his arm round my waist, my hand went up and smacked his face. "We are good enough friends now, but I've often thought of what I escaped by not marrying him. You saw him and the life he's leading at that out of the way place, but you didn't see his obstinacy and his queerness, and Silas is ten times worse, more crazy--well, there, you're warned--but mind you I don't want to be meddling. I've seen so many carefully prepared marriages turn out pure miseries, and so many crazy matches turn out happily, that I'm more than cautious in giving advice. Seems to me that people before they are married are quite different creatures to what they turn out after they are married." "But I don't want to get married," said Phyl. "No, but, seems to me, Silas does," replied the other. CHAPTER VI One bright morning three days later, as Phyl was crossing Meeting Street near the Charleston Hotel, whom should she meet but Silas. Silas in town get up, quite a different looking individual from the Silas of Grangersons, dressed in perfectly fitting light grey tweed, a figure almost condoning one for the use of that old-time, half-discredited word "Elegant." "There you are," said Silas, his face lighting up. "I thought it wouldn't be long before I met you. Meeting Street is like a rabbit run, and I reckon the whole of Charleston passes through it twice a day."