him with exquisite taste (and, to him, amazing frugality)--and, more wonderful still, with an entire effacement of _self_. It was Croyden's party throughout, though her hand was at the helm, her brain directed--and Hampton never knew.

And the place _had_ looked attractive; with the house set in its wide sweep of velvety lawn amid great trees and old-fashioned flowers and hedges. With the furniture cleaned and polished, the old china scattered in cupboard and on table, the portraits and commissions freshly dusted, the swords glistening as of yore.

And in that month, Croyden had come to like Hampton immensely. The absence, in its society, of all attempts at show, to make-believe, to impress, to hoodwink, was refreshingly novel to him, who, hitherto, had known it only as a great sham, a huge affectation, with everyone striving to outdo everyone else, and all as hollow as a rotten gourd.

He had not got used, however, to the individual espionage of the country town--the habit of watching one's every movement, and telling it, and drawing inferences therefrom--inferences tinctured according to the personal feelings of the inferer.

He learned that, in three weeks, they had him "taken" with every eligible girl in town, engaged to four and undecided as to two more. They busied themselves with his food,--they nosed into his drinks, his cigars, his cigarettes, his pipes,--they bothered themselves about his meal hours,--they even inspected his wash when it hung on the line! Some of them, that is. The rest were totally different; they let everyone alone. They did not intrude nor obtrude--they went their way, and permitted everyone to go his.

So much had been the way of Northumberland, so much he had been used to always. But--and here was the difference from Northumberland, the vital difference, indeed--they were interested in you, if _you_ wished them to be--and it was genuine interest, not pretense. This, and the way they had treated him as one of them, because Colonel Duval had been his father's friend, made Croyden feel very much at home.At intervals, he had taken old Parmenter's letter from its secret drawer, and studied it, but he had been so much occupied with getting acquainted, that he had done nothing else. Moreover, there was no pressing need for haste. If the treasure had kept on Greenberry Point for one hundred and ninety years, it would keep a few months longer. Besides, he was a bit uncertain whether or not he should confide in someone, Captain Carrington or Major Borden. He would doubtless need another man to 

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