BOOK SECOND (Continued)
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
BOOK THIRD
XXXV
XXXVI
XXXVII
XXXVIII
XXXIX
XL
XLI
XLII
A little more than an hour after this he stood in the parlour of DoctorTarrant's suburban residence, in Monadnoc Place. He had induced ajuvenile maid-servant, by an appeal somewhat impassioned, to let theladies know that he was there; and she had returned, after a longabsence, to say that Miss Tarrant would come down to him in a littlewhile. He possessed himself, according to his wont, of the nearest book(it lay on the table, with an old magazine and a little japanned traycontaining Tarrant's professional cards—his denomination as a mesmerichealer), and spent ten minutes in turning it over. It was a biography ofMrs. Ada T. P. Foat, the celebrated trance-lecturer, and was embellishedby a portrait representing the lady with a surprised expression andinnumerable ringlets. Ransom said to himself, after reading a few pages,that much ridicule had been cast upon Southern literature; but if thatwas a fair specimen of Northern!—and he threw it back upon the tablewith a gesture almost as contemptuous as if he had not known perfectly,after so long a residence in the North, that it was not, while hewondered whether this was the sort of thing Miss Tarrant had beenbrought up on. There was no other book to be seen, and he remembered tohave read the magazine; so there was finally nothing for him, as theoccupants of the house failed still to appear, but to stare before him,into the bright, bare, common little room, which was so hot that hewished to open a window, and of which an ugly, undraped cross-lightseemed to have taken upon itself to reveal the poverty. Ransom, as Ihave mentioned, had not a high standard of comfort and noticed little,usually, how people's houses were furnished—it was only when they werevery pretty that he observed; but what he saw while he waited at DoctorTarrant's made him say to himself that it was no wonder Verena likedbetter to live with Olive Chancellor. He even began to wonder whether itwere for the sake of that superior softness she had cultivated MissChancellor's favour, and whether Mrs. Luna had been right about herbeing mercenary and insincere. So many minutes elapsed before sheappeared that he had time to remember he really knew nothing to thecontrary, as well as to consider the oddity (so great when one didconsider it) of