pping across the village green.

Amy was eighteen,--blonde, blue-eyed, innocent, well-bred, unpresuming,
without ambition, and without originality. She was very lovely in her
own quiet, tea-rose style. Her position was satisfactory; for her
father, Judge Minturn, was a man of mark in Windham, and one of Dr.
Huger's warmest friends. So, having decided that here was an embodiment
of all his "must-haves," the doctor went over that evening to call
at the Minturn mansion. Not that the call in itself was an unusual
occurrence. He went there often; but hitherto his conversation had been
principally directed to the judge, and to-night there was a noticeable
change.

Amy was looking her loveliest, in her diaphanous muslin robes, with
blue ribbons at her throat, and in her soft light hair. Dr. Huger
wondered that he had never before noticed the pearly tints of her
complexion, the deep lustrous blue of her eyes, the dainty, flower-like
grace of her words and ways. He talked to her, and watched the changing
color in her cheeks, and her rippling smiles, until he began to
think the falling in love, to which he had so deliberately addressed
himself, the easiest and pleasantest thing in the world. She had the
prettiest little air of propriety,--half prudish, and half coquettish.
She received his attentions with a shy grace that was irresistibly
tempting.

He went often to Judge Minturn's after that--not _too_ often, for he
did not wish to startle his pretty Amy by attentions too sudden or too
overpowering; and, indeed, there was nothing in the gentle attraction
by which she drew him to hurry him into any insane forgetfulness of his
customary moderation. But he liked and approved her more and more. He
made up his mind to give her a little longer time in which to become
familiar with him, and then to ask her to be his wife.

When he had reached this determination, he was sent for, one August
day, to see a new patient,--a certain Miss Colchester. He was thinking
about Amy as he went along,--laughing at the foolish old notion
concer