She does not seem to be a safe neighbor to very inflammable bodies ?" Myrtle was sitting in the room long known as the Study, or the Library, when Master Byles Gridley called at The Poplars to see her.

Miss Cynthia, who received him, led him to this apartment and left him alone with Myrtle.

She welcomed him very cordially, but colored as she did so,--his visit was a surprise.

She was at work on a piece of embroidery.
Her first instinctive movement was to thrust it out of sight with the thought of concealment; but she checked this, and before the blush of detection had reached her cheek, the blush of ingenuous shame for her weakness had caught and passed it, and was in full possession.

She sat with her worsted pattern held bravely in sight, and her cheek as bright as its liveliest crimson.
"Miss Cynthia has let me in upon you," he said, "or I should not have ventured to disturb you in this way.