Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-01-12
CHAPTER x.
FLATrERING AND UNEXPECTED.

As conscientious man, Russell could not fully persuade himself that Browns desire for Miss Rays intellectual ad- vancement would be adequately met by the work of the Society for General Culture. If the society should map out a plan for itself at any meeting he foresaw that at the time of the next as- sembly there would be at least seven different ideas of what that plan had been, and seven opinions of any thing that might be offered as a substitute. Tho resulting debates would not be in the line of mental progress.
 But it was not because of these con- alterations that Russell continued to call upon Miss Ray as frequently as the circumstances would permit. He went because he found it more and more agreeable to do so. He was becoming even deeper involved in money-making schemes of nature i'll calculated to make man feel at peace with himself. These fanciful projects appeared to spring up without his volition and to control him. He was their creature. They gave him living, but for all he could see they might cut him off with shilling any day. He regarded himself as an inflated fraud, and though this was on the whole rather pleasant at first, he enjoyed the variety of feeling honest once in awhile.
 And when such desire came to him he called upon Alice Ray, and talked of the subjects which interested her as frankly as she herself, and derived pleasure which he did not understand, but which came to him because he really f,1r ro,1} }Nl lar o1oI 1aI IrS@ Q thought in his brain which couldn't have been safely photographed for her inspection or Browns. He liked her simply as he liked sunshine and fresh air. She was so palpably innocent of small deceits and vanities.
 Russell rather liked Mrs. Ray, too. She was inferior to her daughter in every way. Even in her youth she had not possessed half of Alice's beauty, yet at forty-five she was by no means the embodied prophecy which sometimes frightens suitors away. Mentally she was almost blank, as Brown had said, but with good instincts and breeding she had never felt the want. A safe mother for girl, after all; for 1t is inn possible to inherit evil tendencies from person of no tendencies whatever.
 It was easy for Russell to win her ap- probation. He made no, special effort to do so, but he was innately respectful and of a most courteous demeanor. Gil bert Ray had told his wife that Russell was a hustler who would be heard from" and she had taken this to mean an active young man who might be sup posed to prefer theaters and wine sup pers of a riotous and forbidden char acter, rather than peace and quietness.
 She therefore felt complimented by his evident delight Tn the home-like evenings he spent there, with no moro hilarious entertainment than some what vacuous conversation and a little music. If he had been in love with Alice that would have been another matter, but the maternal eye detected no sign.
 The life of the family was simplicity itself. They spent almost all their evenings at home, and enjoyed each others company in the good old fashion. Alice sang and played well, and both her parents were good listeners, though Mrs. Ray had slight tendency to somnolency. They stayed in the city very late that season, to Russells great satisfaction.
 He made other acquaintanceS through the Society for General Culture. This organization discovered at it's second meeting that the approaching summer would dry up the springs of knowledge; and it was voted and reconsidered and voted again and finally settled by gem eral misunderstanding, that the third session should be the last till fall. The girls all pledged themselves to read during the summer lot of books (the names of which they couldn't afterwards remember) and thus gain store of wis dom to share when they reassembled. Russell read the minutes of the previ- ous meeting which he had made out with offensive accuracy. Tho girls all protested that they never said any thing of the sort or voted that way at all. The 1 report was then amended in such thor ough but unintelligible manner that the Recording Angel could never have rec ognized it as an account of any thing which had transpired on earth during his term of supervision.
 This second meeting was not at the Rays" but at house near by. All the girls lived within a stone's throw of one another. Through this association Rus sell received invitations to one or two minor social gatherings in the very last days of town life. Near the end of June the Rays went to their summer home on the Hudson. It was not beyond easy access i from New York, and Russell was ex7 ~