with at dinner?" asked Stanton, as they were enjoying a quiet smoke
in their favorite corner of the piazza.

"Good for you, Stanton. I never knew you to be so appreciative
before. Your term quite accurately describes her. She is both shy
and reserved, but not diffident or awkward in the least. Indeed
her manner might strike some as being peculiarly frank. But there
is something back of it all; for young as she undoubtedly is, her
face suggests to me some deep and unusual experience."

"Jupiter Ammon! What an abyss of mystery, surmise, and metaphysics
you fell into while I was eating my dinner! I used the phrase
'brown thrush,' only in reference to her dress and general homeliness."

"Oh, I beg your pardon! I take all back about your nice appreciation
of character. I now grasp the whole truth--your attention wandered
sufficiently from your dinner to observe that she wore a brown
dress, and the one fact about the thrush that has impressed you is
that it is brown. 'Here be truths' which leave nothing more to be
said."

"You imaginative fellows are often ridiculously astray on the other
tack, and see a thousand-fold more than exists. But it's a pity
you could not read all there was in this young woman's face, for
it was certainly PLAIN enough. At this rate you will be asking our
burly landlord to unbosom himself, insisting that he has a 'silent
sorrow' tucked away somewhere under his ample waistcoat."

"His troubles, like yours, are banished by the dinner hour. I
recognize your feeble witticism about her plain face, and forgive