If the defenders of their country in the fortress mounted guard that morning, the guests at the Hygeia did not see them, but a good many of them mounted guard later at the hotel, and offered to the young ladies there that protection which the brave like to give the fair. Notwithstanding this, Mr. Stanhope King could not say the day was dull. After a morning presumably spent over works of a religious character, some of the young ladies, who had been the life of the excursion the day before, showed their versatility by devising serious amusements befitting the day, such as twenty questions on Scriptural subjects, palmistry, which on another day is an aid to mild flirtation, and an exhibition of mind-reading, not public--oh, dear, no--but with a favored group in a private parlor. In none of these groups, however, did Mr. King find Miss Benson, and when he encountered her after dinner in the reading-room, she confessed that she had declined an invitation to assist at the mind-reading, partly from a lack of interest, and partly from a reluctance to dabble in such things. “Surely you are not uninterested in what is now called psychical research?” he asked. “That depends,” said Irene. “If I were a physician, I should like to watch the operation of the minds of 'sensitives' as a pathological study. But the experiments I have seen are merely exciting and unsettling, without the least good result, with a haunting notion that you are being tricked or deluded. It is as much as I can do to try and know my own mind, without reading the minds of others.” “But you cannot help the endeavor to read the mind of a person with whom you are talking.” “Oh, that is different. That is really an encounter of wits, for you know that the best part of a conversation is the things not said. What they call mindreading is a vulgar business compared to this. Don't you think so, Mr. King?” What Mr. King was actually thinking was that Irene's eyes were the most unfathomable blue he ever looked into, as they met his with perfect frankness, and he was wondering if she were reading his present state of mind; but what he said was, “I think your sort of mind-reading is a good deal more interesting than the other,” and he might have added, dangerous. For a man cannot attempt to find out what is in a woman's heart without a certain disturbance of his own. He added, “So you think our society is getting too sensitive and nervous, and inclined to make dangerous mental excursions?” “I'm afraid I do not think much about such things,” Irene replied, looking out of the window into the storm. “I'm content with a very simple faith, even if it is called ignorance.”