She walked over to the window, and stood looking out at the sunny day. The fire burned cheerfully on the wide, red hearth, and Maurice looked into its glowing heart thinking gratefully of his preservation and of the friendly refuge into which he had been brought. No reverent man can come face to face with death and escape without some feeling of awe and of gratitude to the power which has preserved him; and Maurice was filled with a sense of how great had been the hand which could bring him through such peril, how kind the protection which had preserved Berenice unscathed. Humility and tenderness overflowed his heart, and the inward thanksgiving which his spirit breathed was as sweet and as unselfish as if a personal passion had never invaded his breast. "It seems to me," Berenice remarked from her place by the window, "that the woods on the hills over there are already beginning to show signs of spring. There is a sort of delicate change of color in them that means buds beginning to grow." Before he could reply, the door opened, and Mehitabel presented herself with a card. "Oh," said Berenice, as she received it, "already!" There seemed to Maurice something of impatience or dismay in her tone. She excused herself and went out, leaving the old servant with Wynne. As soon as the door closed, Mehitabel turned upon him at once. "Do you know him?" she demanded. "Know whom?" "This sprig that's come from Boston to see Miss Bee?" Maurice looked at her with a sharp sense that he ought not to allow her to go on, yet with a desire to know more so burning that he could not refrain. "I didn't even know that anybody had come from Boston to see Miss Morison," he replied; "so that it isn't easy to say whether I know him or not." "His name is Parker Stanford, and he's all the signs of being better'n his grandfathers and knowing it through and through. He's too fond of his looks to suit me." "I don't know him," Maurice answered, "except that I've heard my cousin, Mrs. Staggchase, mention his name. He's very rich, I believe, and a good deal of a leader in society." "Humph," sniffed Mehitabel. "He may be a leader in society, but he's as selfish as a sucking calf!" "You seem to know him pretty well," commented Maurice. "I suppose you've seen him often." "Never saw him in my life till this minute. Young man, I'll tell you this, though. Every woman with any brains knows what a man is the minute she claps eyes on him; only if he's good-looking, or awful wicked, or makes love to her, or forty thousand other things, she'll deny to herself that she knows any bad about him." "Then it seems to be much the same thing as if your sex weren't gifted with such extraordinary insight," Maurice responded, laughing. "If women didn't cheat themselves there wouldn't be no marriages," Mehitabel retorted, grinning, and retired in evident delight over her success in repartee. As for Maurice, he became wonderfully grave the moment he was left alone.