When on the day previous Stanford had come to the train to see Berenice off, she had been especially gracious. She had been in particularly good spirits, full of amusement that Mr. Wynne was to be her neighbor on the train, and that he did not know it. She had chanced to send for tickets with Mrs. Wilson, the pair had laughingly planned the arrangement, and Berenice had promised herself some entertainment in teasing the young cleric on the journey. It pleased her, too, that Stanford should take the trouble to come to the station, especially as Kate West, who had tried so hard to secure him despite the fact that she was ten years his senior, chanced to be meeting a friend and to be there to see. She allowed herself to smile on her lover with more warmth than usual, and was a little vexed as well as a little amused by it afterward. On the train she reflected that if she were to be so gracious Stanford would press his suit more warmly than she wished; yet on the other hand it occurred to her that if she were to be engaged to him, she might as well get it over. Why not marry in the spring and go abroad? She wished much to go to Bayreuth for the Wagner operas in the summer, and the aunt with whom she had hoped to travel was not willing to go. Besides, she really could not afford the trip, and at least Stanford had plenty of money. The idea of marrying with a thought to his wealth was distasteful, and she at once said to herself that she could not do that; but if she were to marry him--As the train rolled on she had filled in the talk with Wynne with speculations whether it might not be as well to let Stanford propose once more, and have matters settled. These cogitations, however, she interspersed with reflections that her traveling companion had a beautiful eye and a finely cut nostril; that he was on the whole a fine-looking man, handsome and well made, if he were not disguised in that detestable clerical garb; and that his hands were distinctly those of a gentleman. She liked the tones of his voice and the carriage of his head, smiling to herself at the thought that in the latter there was hardly so much meekness as was to be expected in one of his profession. She laughed at him almost openly, for to the young woman of to-day there is apt to be something bordering on the ludicrous and unmanly in a youth who is preparing to take orders, no matter how great her respect for the completed clergyman. Berenice felt something not entirely free from a trace of good-natured contempt for deacons in the abstract, not dreaming that she might be led to make an exception in favor of this especial deacon in the concrete. She became more and more alive to the attractions of Wynne, although up to the time of the accident she hardly realized the fact.