It had, perhaps, been this lady's affection for Professor Herrick which had, at the outset, directed her attention to his favorite; but, an acquaintance once established, there had been no need of any other impetus than she received from her own feminine kindliness, quickness of perception, and sympathy. The interest he awakened in most feminine minds he had at once awakened in her own. "He looks," she said to herself, "as if he had a story, and hardly knew the depth of its meaning himself." But, though she was dexterous enough at drawing deductions, and heard much of the small talk of society, she heard no story. He was at once soldier and scholar; he was kind, brave, and generous; men spoke well of him, and women liked him; his past and present entitled him to respect and admiration; but there was no story mentioned in any discussion of him. He seemed to have lived a life singularly uneventful, so far as emotional experiences were concerned. "Nevertheless," she used to say, when she gave a few moments to sympathetic musing upon him, "nevertheless"-- She observed his good behavior, notwithstanding he did not enjoy himself greatly in society. He was attentive to his duties without being absorbed in them, and, when temporarily unoccupied, wore a rather weary and abstracted look. "It is something like the look," she once remarked inwardly, "_something_ like the look I have seen in the eyes of that bright and baffling little Mrs. Amory, who seems at times to be obliged to recall herself from somewhere." She had not been the leader of this world of hers without seeing many things and learning many lessons; and, as she had stood giving her greeting to the passing multitude week after week, she had gained a wonderful amount of experience and knowledge of her kind. She had seen so many weary faces, so many eager ones, so many stamped with care and disappointment; bright eyes had passed before her which one season had saddened; she had heard gay voices change and soft ones grow hard; she had read of ambitions frustrated and hopes denied, and once or twice had seen with a pang that somewhere a heart had been broken.