Lucinda turned away from the sink, threw down her dish-cloth with a thud, and put her arms akimbo and her shoulders well back. Watching her, Ben felt that somehow this girl, too, took after her grandfather rather than him. “Oh, _is_ he!” she said, her voice high-pitched and vehement. “I guess _we’ll_ have something to say about _that_!” CHAPTER XXV.--A VISITATION OF ANGELS. REUBEN Tracy waited in his office next day for the visit of the milliner, but, to tell the truth, devoted very little thought to wondering about her errand. The whole summer and autumn, as he sat now and smoked in meditation upon them, seemed to have been an utterly wasted period in his life. He had done nothing worth recalling. His mind had not even evolved good ideas. Through all the interval which lay between this November day and that afternoon in March, when he had been for the only time inside the Minster house, one solitary set thought had possessed his mind. Long ago it had formulated itself in his brain; found its way to the silent, spiritual tongue with which we speak to ourselves. He loved Kate Minster, and had had room for no other feeling all these months. At first, when this thought was still new to him, he had hugged it to his heart with delight. Now the melancholy days indeed were come, and he had only suffering and disquiet from it. She had never even answered his letter proffering assistance. She was as far away from him, as coldly unattainable, as the north star. It made him wretched to muse upon her beauty and charm; his heart was weary with hopeless longing for her friendship--yet he was powerless to command either mind or heart. They clung to her with painful persistency; they kept her image before him, whispered her name in his ear, filled all his dreams with her fair presence, to make each wakening a fresh grief. In his revolt against this weakness, Reuben had burned the little scented note for which so reverential a treasure-box had been made in his desk. But this was of no avail. He could never enter that small inner room where he now sat without glancing at the drawer which had once been consecrated to the letter. It was humiliating that he should prove to have so little sense and strength. He bit his cigar fiercely with annoyance when this aspect of the case rose before him. If love meant anything, it meant a mutual sentiment. By all the lights of philosophy, it was not possible to love a person who did not return that love. This he said to himself over and over again, but the argument was not helpful. Still his mind remained perversely full of Kate Minster.