And what did this lame stranger have to do with her, that, of all people on earth, his eyes alone had twice seen into her heart?... She looked suddenly up at him from under the engaging little hat, and said with a smile that was meant to be quite easy and derisive, but hardly managed to be that: "Supposing that you do know me, as you say, and that I came to you to prescribe for me--as a sort of happiness doctor.... Would you say that to give away everything I had--or papa had--would be the one way for me to be--happy?" "Happy?..." He curled and recurled the corners of the Heth cards, which did not improve their appearance. He gazed down at the work of his hands, and there seemed to be no color in his face. "To be happy.... Oh, no, I shouldn't think that you--that any one--could be happy just through an act, like that." "I could hardly give away more than everything all of us had, could I?" "Well, but don't you think of happiness as a frame of mind, a--a sort of habit of the spirit? Don't you think it comes usually as a--a by-product of other things?" "Oh, but I'm asking you, you see.... What sort of things do you mean?" He hesitated perceptibly, seeming to take her light derisive remarks with a strange seriousness. "Well, I think a--a good rule is to ... to cultivate the sympathies all the time, and keep doing something useful." Carlisle continued to look at his downcast face, with the translucent eyes, and as she looked, the strangest thought shimmered through her, with a turning of the heart new in her experience. She thought: "This man is a good friend...." And then she said aloud, suddenly: "I am not happy--very." She could not well have regarded that as a Parthian shot, a demolishing rebuke. Nevertheless, she turned upon it, precipitately, and went away down the steps. * * * * * These events took place, in the course of ten minutes upon a doorstep, on the 31st of January. On the 27th of February, Carlisle departed, from the face of her mother's displeasure and all the horridness of home, for her Lenten visit to the Willings. Through the interval the dreariness of life continued; Canning was reported in Cuba; she had abandoned all thought of a little note. The nephew she saw no more; but it chanced that she came to hear his name on many lips. For on the cold morning of the birthday of the Father of his Country, old Armistead Beirne, whom three doctors had pronounced all but a well man, was found dead in his bed: and a few days later, by the probation of his will, it became known that of his fortune of some two hundred thousand dollars, he had left one-fifth to his eccentric nephew in the Dabney House. XV In which she goes to New York, and is very Happy indeed.