It
was unsupposable that he would ever marry; nobody ever had
supposed it.
"Jasper Dale never so much as THOUGHT about a woman," Carlisle
oracles declared. Oracles, however, are not always to be trusted.
One day Mrs. Griggs went away from the Dale place with a very
curious story, which she diligently spread far and wide. It made
a good deal of talk, but people, although they listened eagerly,
and wondered and questioned, were rather incredulous about it.
They thought Mrs. Griggs must be drawing considerably upon her
imagination; there were not lacking those who declared that she
had invented the whole account, since her reputation for strict
veracity was not wholly unquestioned.
Mrs. Griggs's story was as follows:--
One day she found the door of the west gable unlocked. She went
in, expecting to see bare walls and a collection of odds and ends.
Instead she found herself in a finely furnished room. Delicate
lace curtains hung before the small, square, broad-silled windows.
The walls were adorned with pictures in much finer taste than Mrs.
Griggs could appreciate. There was a bookcase between the windows
filled with choicely bound books. Beside it stood a little table
with a very dainty work-basket on it. By the basket Mrs.
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