Thornton Carey, who was much surprised at this sudden address, stopped, hesitated, and looked somewhat embarrassed. Another man, accustomed to what are called 'adventures,' would not have been in the least thrown off his balance, either by the suddenness or the style of the address; he would have accepted it as a matter of course, and done his best to make himself pleasant to the speaker. Thornton Carey, however, was not this style of man, and, even if he had been, there was something in the earnestness of Miss Montressor's voice and manner which would have stopped his flippancy. Had she not, moreover, mentioned the name of Helen, and declared herself to be about to speak in Mrs. Griswold's interests? That would have been quite enough at any time to command Thornton Carey's sympathy and attention. 'I am a friend of Mrs. Griswold's,' he replied, looking keenly at his interlocutor, 'and, for the matter of that, of Mr. Griswold's too, I hope.' 'What I have to say concerns them both most nearly,' said Miss Montressor, frankly meeting his gaze. 'Will you, in the exercise of your friendship for them, trust me so far as to accompany me in a carriage to the Fifth-avenue Hotel?' Again Thornton Carey hesitated. He went very little into female society, and, under any other circumstances, the idea of being shut up in a carriage with a strange lady would certainly have frightened him; and again he suffered himself to be persuaded by Miss Montressor's manner and the object of her mission. 'I will do so willingly,' he said; and ordering the coachman to drive to the hotel, he entered the vehicle, and took his place by his fair companion's side. As they drove through the crowded streets, Thornton Carey thought with wonder upon his strange position. Here was he, the hermit, the recluse, who so seldom emerged from his lettered seclusion far away in the city of the South, who seldom sought for any company beyond that of the distinguished dead who gathered around him as he pored over his books--here he was, rattling over the stones of New York, bound for the most luxurious hotel in the city, and with a very handsome, dashing young woman by his side. In the course of the desultory reading which, like most young men, he had indulged in before permanently settling down to valuable study, he had, he remembered, come across the description of certain adventures, such as he was then going through; and the idea that he, whom all his coevals looked upon as a model of sageness and sobriety, should be found under such circumstances, would have amused him, had he not at the same time remembered that the errand on which he was bound was, according to his companion's words, one in which Helen's happiness was deeply interested.