street up and down to see if any one were observing them (and how could she be certain that no peering pair of eyes was not gazing from between the shutters of the closed blinds of the great house opposite?). However, as the street appeared to be deserted, she followed Ella, with some reluctance, into the shop. She made this sacrifice in vain: her hesitation and alarm had served to spoil the adventure for the Countess. On principle, Ella bought the candy, in defiance of law or custom (in these instances she never could be entirely sure which it was) but when she tasted it she found that it had lost its flavour. A week later the manila paper bag of sweets still stood on the desk in her bedroom and, realizing that the unpublished tenets of Maple Valley were beginning to infect her spirit, the Countess, with a sigh, dropped it, at last, into the waste-basket. She noted that Lou, whose face had preserved an anxious frown during the course of this week, as if she feared a recurrence of this unpleasant unconventionality, grew brighter after she had committed this act of renunciation, and she wondered how many times a day Lou must have stolen into her bedroom to gaze on the little paper bag with silent prayer.
Another incident occurred which, while highly farcical in retrospect, almost caused the Countess in her contemporary temper to evacuate immediately. The Poores had always been Universalists, almost free-thinkers. Seth Poore, as a matter of
