He mastered his hearers, and played on their breasts as David played the harp, and perhaps Achilles; Bochsa never, nor any of his tribe. He made the old man forget his genealogies, his small ambition, his gout, his years, and be a boy again an hour or two in thought, and blood, and early fire. He made the women's bosoms pant and swell, and seem to aspire to be the nests and cradles of heroes, and their eyes flash and glisten, and their cheeks flush and grow pale by turns; and the four little papered walls that confined them seemed to fall without noise, and they were away in thought out of a carpeted temple of wax, small talk, nonentity, and nonentities, away to sea-breezes that they almost felt in their hair and round their temples as their hearts rose and fell upon a broad swell of passion, perils, waves, male men, realities. The spell was at its height, when the sea-wizard's eye fell on the mantel-piece. Died in a moment his noble ardor: "Why, it is eight bells," said he, servilely; then, doggedly, "time to turn in."

"Hang that clock!" shouted Mr. Fountain; "I'll have it turned out of the room."

Said Lucy, with gentle enthusiasm, "It must be beautiful to be a sailor, and to have seen the real world, and, above all, to be brave and strong like Mr. ——,. must it not, uncle?" and she looked askant at David's square shoulders and lion eye, and for the first time in her life there crossed her an undefined instinct that this gentleman must be the male of her species.

"As for his courage," said Eve, "that we have only his own word for."

David grinned.

"Not even that," replied Lucy, "for I observed he spoke but little of himself."

"I did not notice that," said Eve, pertly; "but as for his strength, he certainly is as strong as a great bear, and as rude. What do you think? my lord carried me all the way from the top of the green lane to your house, and I am no feather."

"No, a skein of silk," put in David.

"I asked the gentleman politely to put me down, and he wouldn't, so then I boxed his ears."

"Oh, how could you?"

"Oh, bless you, he never hits me again; he is too great a coward. And the great mule carried me all the more—carried me to your very door."

"I almost think—I believe I could guess why he carried you, if you will not be offended at my assuming the interpreter," said Lucy, looking at Eve and speaking at David. "You have thin shoes on, Miss Dodd; now I remember the gravel ends at green lane, and the grass begins; so, from what we know of Mr. Dodd, perhaps he carried you that you might not have damp feet."

"Nothing of the kind—yes, it was, though, by his coloring up. La! David, dear boy!"

"What is a man alongside for but to keep a girl out of mischief?" said David, bruskly.

"Pray convert all your sex to that view," laughed Lucy.

So now they were going. Then Mr. Fountain thanked David for the pleasant evening he had given them; then David blushed and stammered. He had a veneration for old age—another of his superstitions.

Her uncle's lead gave Lucy an opportunity she instantly seized. "Mr. Dodd, you have taken us into a new world of knowledge; we never were so interested in our lives." At this pointblank praise David blushed, and was anything but comfortable, and began to back out of it all with a curt bow. Then, as the ladies can advance when a man of merit retreats, Lucy went the length of putting out her hand with a sweet, grateful smile; so he took it, and, in the ardor of encouraging so much spirit and modesty, she unconsciously pressed it. On this delicious pressure, light as it was, he raised his full brown eye, and gave her such a straightforward look of manly admiration and pleasure that she blushed faintly and drew back a little in her turn.

"Well, Davy, dear, how do you like the Fountains?"

"Eve, she is a clipper!"

"And the old gentleman?"

"He was very friendly. What do you think of her?"

"She is an out-and-out woman of the world, and very agreeable, as insincere people generally are. I like her because she was so polite to you."

"Oh, that is your reading of her, is it?"

The rest of the walk passed almost in silence.

"Uncle, I am not sleepy to-night."

"Who is? that young rascal has set me on fire with his yarns. Who would have thought that awkward cub had so much in him?"

"Awkward, but not a cub; say rather a black swan; and you know, uncle, a swan is an awkward thing on land, but when it takes the water it is glorious, and that man was glorious; but—Da—vid Do—dd."

"I don't know whether he was glorious, but I know he amused me, and I'll have him to tea three times a week while he lasts."

"Uncle, do you believe such an unfortunate combination of sounds is his real name?" asked Lucy, gravely.

"Why, who would be mad enough to feign such a name?"

"That is true; but now tell me—if he should ever, think of marrying with such a name?"

"Then there will be two David Dodd's in the world, Mr. and Mrs."

"I don't think so; he will be merciful, and take her name instead of she his; he is so good-natured."

"Ordinary sponsors would have been content with Samuel or Nathan; but no, this one's must, call in 'apt alliteration's artful aid,' and have the two 'd's.'"

Lucy assented with a smile, and so, being no longer under the spell of the enthusiast and the male, the genealogist and the fine lady took the rise out of what Miss Fountain was pleased to call his impossible title,

Da—vid Dodd.



CHAPTER III.

LUCY was not called on to write any more formal invitations to Mr. Talboys. Her uncle used merely to say to her: "Talboys dines with us to-day." She made no remark; she respected her uncle's preference; besides—the pony! Of these trios Mr. Fountain was the true soul. He had to blow the coals of conversation right and left. It is very good of me not to compare him to the Tropic between two frigid zones. At first he took his nap as usual; for he said to himself: "Now I have started them they can go on." Besides, he had seen pictures in the shop windows of an old fellow dozing and then the young ones "popping."

Dozing off with this idea uppermost, he used to wake with his eyes shut and his ears wide open; but it was to hear drowsy monosyllables dropping out at intervals like minute-guns, or to find Lucy gone and Talboys reading the coals. Then the schemer sighed, and took to strong coffee soon after dinner, and gave up his nap, and its loss impaired his temper the rest of the evening.

He indemnified himself for these sleepless dinners by asking David Dodd and his sister to tea thrice a week on the off-nights; this joyous pair amused the old gentleman, and he was not the man to deny himself a pleasure without a powerful motive.

"What, again so soon?" hazarded Lucy, one day that he bade her invite them. "I hardly know how to word my invitation; I have exhausted the forms."

"If you say another word, I'll make them come every night. Am I to have no amusement?" he added, in a deep tone of reproach; "they make me laugh."

"Ah! I forgot; forgive me."

"Little hypocrite; don't they you too, pray? Why, you are as dull as ditchwater the other evenings."

"Me, dear, dull with you?"

"Yes, Miss Crocodile, dull with a pattern uncle and his friend—and your admirer." He watched her to see how she would take this last word. Catch her taking it at all. "I am never dull with you, dear uncle," said she; "but a third person, however estimable, is a certain restraint, and when that person is not very lively—" Here the explanation came quietly to an untimely end, like those old tunes that finish in the middle or thereabouts.

"But that is the very thing; what do I ask them for to-night but to thaw Talboys?"

"To thaw Talboys? he! he!"

Lucy seemed so tickled by this expression that the old gentleman was sorry he had used it.

"I mean, they will make him laugh." Then, to turn it off, he said hastily, "And don't forget the fiddle, Lucy."

"Oh, yes, dear, please let me forget that, and then perhaps they may forget to bring it."

"Why, you pressed him to bring it; I heard you."

"Did I?" said Lucy, ruefully.

"I am sure I thought you were mad after a fiddle, you seconded Eve so warmly; so that. was only your extravagant politeness after all. I am glad you are caught. I like a fiddle, so there is no harm done."

Yes, reader, you have hit it. Eve, who openly quizzed her brother, but secretly adored him, and loved to display all his accomplishments, had egged on Mr. Fountain to ask David to bring his violin next time. Lucy had shivered internally. "Now, of all the screeching, whining things that I dislike, a violin!"—and thus thinking, gushed out, "Oh, pray do, Mr. Dodd," with a gentle warmth that settled the matter and imposed on all around.

This evening, then, the Dodds came to tea.

They found Lucy alone in the drawing-room, and Eve engaged her directly in sprightly conversation, into which they soon drew David, and, interchanging a secret signal, plied him with a few artful questions, and—launched him. But the one sketch I gave of his manner and matter must serve again and again. Were I to retail to the reader all the droll, the spirited, the exciting things he told his hearers, there would be no room for my own little story; and we are all so egotistical! Suffice it to say, the living book of travels was inexhaustible; his observation and memory were really marvelous, and his enthusiasm, coupled with his accuracy of detail, had still the power to inthrall his hearers.

"Mr. Dodd," said Lucy, "now I see why Eastern kings have a story-teller always about them—a live story-teller. Would not you have one, Miss Dodd, if you were Queen of Persia?"

"Me? I'd have a couple—one to make me laugh; one miserable."

"One would be enough if his resources were equal to your brother's. Pray go on, Mr. Dodd. It was madness to interrupt you with small talk."

David hung his head for a moment, then lifted it with a smile, and sailed in the spirit into the China seas, and there told them how the Chinamen used to slip on board his ship and steal with supernatural dexterity, and the sailors catch them by the tails, which they observing, came ever with their tails soaped like pigs at a village feast; and how some foolhardy sailors would venture into the town at the risk of their lives; and how one day they had to run for it, and when they got to the shore their boat was stolen, and they had to 'bout ship and fight it out, and one fellow who knew the natives had loaded the sailors' guns with currant jelly. Make ready—present—fire! In a moment the troops of the Celestial Empire smarted, and were spattered with seeming gore, and fled yelling.

Then he told how a poor comrade of his was nabbed and clapped in prison, and his hands and feet were to be cut off at sunrise; himself at noon. It was midnight, and strict orders from the quarterdeck had been issued that no man should leave the ship: what was to be done? It was a moonlight night. They met, silent as death, between decks—daren't speak above a whisper, for fear the officers should hear them. His messmate was crying like a child. One proposed one thing, one another; but it was all nonsense, and we knew it was, and at sunrise poor Tom must die.

At last up jumps one fellow, and cries, "Messmates, I've got it; Tom isn't dead yet."

This was the moment Mr. Fountain and Mr. Talboys chose for coming into the drawing-room, of course. Mr. Fountain, with a shade of hesitation and awkwardness, introduced the Dodds to Mr. Talboys: he bowed a little stiffly, and there was a pause. Eve could not repress a little movement of nervous impatience. "David is telling us one of his nonsensical stories, sir," said she to Mr. Fountain, "and it is so interesting; go on, David."

"Well, but," said David, modestly, "it isn't everybody that likes these sea-yarns as you do, Eve. No, I'll belay, and let my betters get a word in now."

"You are more merciful than most story-tellers, sir," said Talboys.

Eve tossed her head and looked at Lucy, who with a word could have the story go on again. That young lady's face expressed general complacency, politeness, and tout m'est egal. Eve could have beat her for not taking David's part. "Doubleface!" thought she. She then devoted herself with the sly determination of her sex to trotting David out and making him the principal figure in spite of the new-corner.

But, as fast as she heated him, Talboys cooled him. We are all great at something or other, small or great. Talboys was a first-rate freezer. He was one of those men who cannot shine, but can eclipse. They darken all but a vain man by casting a dark shadow of trite sentences on each luminary. The vain man insults them directly, and so gets rid of them.

Talboys kept coming across honest enthusiastic David with little remarks, each skillfully discordant with the rising sentiment. Was he droll, Talboys did a bit of polite gravity on him; was he warm in praise of some gallant action, chill irony trickled on him from T.

His flashes of romance were extinguished by neat little dicta, embodying sordid and false, but current views of life. The gauze wings of eloquence, unsteeled by vanity, will not bear this repeated dabbing with prose glue, so David collapsed and Talboys conquered—"spell" benumbed "charm." The sea-wizard yielded to the petrifier, and "could no more," as the poets say. Talboys smiled superior. But, as his art was a purely destructive one, it ended with its victim; not having an idea of his own in his skull, the commentator, in silencing his text, silenced himself and brought the society to a standstill. Eve sat with flashing eyes; Lucy's twinkled with sly fun: this made Eve angrier. She tried another tack.

"You asked David to bring his fiddle," said she, sharply, "but I suppose now—"

"Has he brought it?" asked Mr. Fountain, eagerly.

"Yes, he has; I made him" (with a glance of defiance at Talboys).

Mr. Fountain rang the bell directly and sent for the fiddle. It came. David took it and tuned it, and made it discourse. Lucy leaned a little back in her chair, wore her "tout m'est egal face," and Eve watched her like a cat. First her eyes opened with a mild astonishment, then her lips parted in a smile; after a while a faint color came and went, and. her eyes deepened and deepened in color, and glistened with the dewy light of sensibility.

A fiddle wrought this, or rather genius, in whose hand a jews-harp is the lyre of Orpheus, a fiddle the harp of David, a chisel a hewer of heroic forms, a brush or a pen the scepter of souls, and, alas! a nail a picklock.

Inside every fiddle is a soul, but a coy one. The nine hundred and ninety-nine never win it. They play rapid tunes, but the soul of beautiful gayety is not there; slow tunes, very slow ones, wherein the spirit of whining is mighty, but the sweet soul of pathos is absent; doleful, not nice and tearful. Then comes the Heaven-born fiddler,* who can make himself cry. with his own fiddle. David had a touch of this witchcraft. Though a sound musician and reasonably master of his instrument, he could not fly in a second up and down it, tickling the fingerboard and scratching the strings without an atom of tone, as the mechanical monkeys do that boobies call fine players.

* This is a definition of the Heaven-born fiddler by Pate Bailey, a gypsy tinker and celestial violinist. Being asked for a test of proficiency on that instrument, he replied that no man is a fiddler "till he can gar himsel greet wi a feddle."

"Great Orpheus played so well he moved Old Nick, But these move nothing but their fiddlestick."*

* See how unjust satire is! Don't they move their finger-nails?

But he could make you laugh and crow with his fiddle, and could make you jump up, aetat. 60, and snap your fingers at old age and propriety, and propose a jig to two bishops and one master of the rolls, and, they declining, pity them without a shade of anger, and substitute three chairs; then sit unabashed and smiling at the past; and the next minute he could make you cry, or near it. In a word he could evoke the soul of that wonderful wooden shell, and bid it discourse with the souls and hearts of his hearers.

Meantime Lucy Fountain's face would have interested a subtle student of her sex.

Her sensibility to music was great, and the feeling strains stole into her nature, and stirred the treasures of the deep to the surface. Eve, a keen if not a profound observer, was struck by the rising beauty of this countenance, over which so many moods chased one another. She said to herself: "Well, David is right, after all; she is a lovely girl. Her features are nothing out of the way. Her nose is neither one thing nor the other, but her expression is beautiful. None of your wooden faces for me. And, dear heart, how her neck rises! La! how her color comes and goes! Well, I do love the fiddle myself dearly; and now, if her eyes are not brimming; I could kiss her! La! David," cried she, bursting the bounds of silence, "that is enough of the tune the old cow died of; take and play something to keep our hearts up—do."

Eve's good-humor and mirth were restored by David's success, and now nothing would serve her turn but a duet, pianoforte and violin. Miss Fountain objected, "Why spoil the violin?" David objected too, "I had hoped to hear the piano-forte, and how can I with a fiddle sounding under my chin?" Eve overruled both peremptorily.

"Well, Miss Dodd, what shall we select? But it does not matter; I feel sure Mr. Dodd can play a livre ouvert."

"Not he," said Eve, hypocritically, being secretly convinced he could. "Can you play 'a leevre ouvert,' David?"

"Who is it by, Miss Fountain?" Lucy never moved a muscle.

After a rummage a duet was found that looked promising, and the performance began. In the middle David stopped.

"Ha! ha! David's broke down," shrieked Eve, concealing her uneasiness under fictitious gayety. "I thought he would."

"I beg your pardon," explained David to Miss Fountain, "but you are out of time."

"Am I?" said Lucy, composedly.

"And have been, more or less, all through."

"David, you forget yourself."

"No, no; set me right, by all means, Mr. Dodd. I am not a hardened offender."

"Is it not just possible the violin may be the instrument that is out of time?" suggested Talboys, insidiously.

"No," said David, simply, "I was right enough."

"Let us try again, Mr. Dodd. Play me a few bars first in exact time. Thank you. Now."

"All went merry as a marriage bell" for a page and a half; then David, fiddling away, cried out, "You are getting too fast; 'ri tum tiddy, iddy ri tum ti;" then, by stamping and accenting very strongly, he kept the piano from overflowing its bounds. The piece ended. Eve rubbed her hands. "Now you'll catch it, Mr. David!"

"I am afraid I gave you a great deal of trouble, Mr. Dodd."

"En revanche, you gave us a great deal of pleasure," put in Mr. Talboys.

Lucy turned her head and smiled graciously. "But piano-forte players play so much by themselves, they really forget the awful importance of time."

"I profit by your confession that they do sometimes play by themselves," said Mr. Talboys. "Be merciful, and let us hear you by yourself."' Eve turned as red as fire.

David backed the request sincerely.

Lucy played a piece composed expressly for the piano by a pianist of the day. David sat on her left hand and watched intently how she did it.

When it was over, Talboys did a bit of rapture; Eve another.

"That is playing."

"I would not have believed it if I had not seen it done," said David. "Eve, you should have seen her beautiful fingers thread in and out among the keys; it was like white fire dancing; and as for her hand, it is not troubled with joints like ours, I should say."

"The music, Mr. Dodd," said Lucy, severely.

"Oh, the music! Well, I could hardly take on me to say. You see I heard it by the eye, and that was all in its favor; but I should say the music wasn't worth a button."

"David!"

"How you run off with one's words, Eve! I mean, played by anybody but her. Why, what was it, when you come to think? Up and down the gamut, and then down and up. No more sense in it than a b c—a scramble to the main-masthead for nothing, and back to no good. I'd as lief see you play on the table, Miss Fountain."

"Poor Moscheles!" said Lucy, dryly.

"Revenge is in your power," said Talboys; "play no more; punish us all for this one heretic."

Lucy reflected a moment; she then took from the canterbury a thick old book. "This was my mother's. Her taste was pure in music, as in everything. I shall be sorry if you do not all like this," added she, softly.

It was an old mass; full, magnificent chords in long succession, strung together on a clear but delicate melody. She played it to perfection: her lovely hands seemed to grasp the chords. No fumbling in the base; no gelatinizing in the treble. Her touch, firm and masterly, yet feminine, evoked the soul of her instrument, as David had of his, and she thought of her mother as she played. These were those golden strains from which all mortal dross seems purged. Hearing them so played, you could not realize that he who writ them had ever eaten, drunk, smoked, snuffed, and hated the composer next door. She who played them felt their majesty and purity. She lifted her beaming eye to heaven as she played, and the color receded from her cheek; and when her enchantment ended she was silent, and all were silent, and their ears ached for the departed charm.

Then she looked round a mute inquiry.

Talboys applauded loudly.

But the tear stood in David's eye, and he said nothing.

"Well, David," said Eve, reproachfully, "I'm sure if that does not please you—"

"Please me," cried David, a little fretfully; "more shame for me if it does not. Please is not the word. It is angel music, I call it—ah!"

"Well, you need not break your heart for that: he is going to cry—ha! ha!"

"I'm no such thing," cried David, indignantly, and blew his nose—promptly, with a vague air of explanation and defiance.

But why the male of my species blows its nose to hide its sensibility a deeper than I must decide.

Mr. Talboys for some time had not been at his ease. He had been playing too, and an instrument he hated—second fiddle. He rose and joined Mr. Fountain, who was sitting half awake on a distant sofa.

"Aha!" thought Eve, exulting, "we have driven him away."

Judge her mortification when Lucy, after shutting the piano, joined her uncle and Mr. Talboys. Eve whispered David: "Gone to smooth him down: the high and mighty gentleman wasn't made enough of."

"Every one in their turn," said David, calmly; "that is manners. Look! it is the old gentleman she is being kind to. She could not be unkind to anyone, however."

Eve put her lips to David's ear: "She will be unkind to you if you are ever mad enough to let her see what I see," said she, in a cutting whisper.

"What do you see? More than there is to see, I'll wager," said David, looking down.

"Ah! that is the way with young men, the moment they take a fancy; their sister is nothing to them, their best friend loses their confidence."

"Don't ye say that, Eve—now don't say that!"

"No, no, David, never mind me. I am cross. And if you saw a sore heart in store for anyone you had a regard for, wouldn't you be cross? Young men are so stupid, they can't read a girl no more than Hebrew. If she is civil and affable to them, oh, they are the man directly, when, instead of that, if it was so, she would more likely be shy and half afraid to come near them. David, you are in a fool's paradise. In company, and even in flirtation, all sorts meet and part again; but it isn't so with marriage. There 'it is beasts of a kind that in one are joined, and birds of a feather that came together.' Like to like, David. She is a fine lady and she will marry a fine gentleman, and nothing else, with a large income. If she knew what has been in your head this month past, she would open her eyes and ask if the man was mad."

"She has a right to look down on me, I know," murmured David, humbly; "but" (his eye glowing with sudden rapture) "she doesn't—she doesn't."

"Look down on you! You are better company than she is, or anyone she can get in this-out-of-the-way place; it is her interest to be civil to you. I am too hard upon her. She is a lady—a perfect lady—and that is why she is above giving herself airs. No, David, she is not the one to treat us with disrespect, if we don't forget ourselves. But if ever you let her see that you are in love with her, you will get an affront that will make your cheek burn and my heart smart—so I tell you."

"Hush! I never told you I was in love with her."

"Never told me? Never told me? Who asked you to tell me? I have eyes, if you have none."

"Eve," said David imploringly, "I don't hear of any lover that she has. Do you?"

"No," said Eve carelessly. "But who knows? She passes half the year a hundred miles from this, and there are young men everywhere. If she was a milkmaid, they'd turn to look at her with such a face and figure as that, much more a young lady with every grace and every charm. She has more than one after her that we never see, take my word."

Eve had no sooner said this than she regretted it, for David's face quivered, and he sighed like one trying to recover his breath after a terrible blow.

What made this and the succeeding conversation the more trying and peculiar was, that the presence of other persons in the room, though at a considerable distance, compelled both brother and sister, though anything but calm, to speak sotto voce. But in the history of mankind more strange and incongruous matter has been dealt with in an undertone, and with artificial and forced calmness.

"My poor David!" said Eve sorrowfully; "you who used to be so proud, so high-spirited, be a man! Don't throw away such a treasure as your affection. For my sake, dear David, your sister's sake, who does love you so very, very dearly!"

"And I love you, Eve. Thank you. It was hard lines. Ah! But it is wholesome, no doubt, like most bitters. Yes. Thank you, Eve. I do admire her v-very much," and his voice faltered a little. "But I am a man for all that, and I'll stand to my own words. I'll never be any woman's slave."

"That is right, David."

"I will not give hot for cold, nor my heart for a smile or two. I can't help admiring her, and I do hope she will be—happy—ah!—whoever she fancies. But, if I am never to command her, I won't carry a willow at my mast-head, and drift away from reason and manhood, and my duty to you, and mother, and myself."

"Ah! David, if you could see how noble you look now. Is it a promise, David? for I know you will keep your word if once you pass it."

"There is my hand on it, Eve."

The brother and sister grasped hands, and when David was about to withdraw his, Eve's soft but vigorous little hand closed tighter and kept it firmer, and so they sat in silence.

"Eve."

"My dear!"

"Now don't you be cross."

"No, dear. Eve is sad, not cross; what is it?

"Well, Eve—dear Eve."

"Don't be afraid to speak your mind to me—why should you?"

"Well, then, Eve, now, if she had not some little kindness for me, would she be so pleased with these thundering yarns I keep spinning her, as old as Adam, and as stale as bilge-water? You that are so keen, how comes it you don't notice her eyes at these times? I feel them shine on me like a couple of suns. They would make a statue pay the yarn out. Who ever fancied my chat as she does?"

"David," said Eve, quietly, "I have thought of all this; but I am convinced now there is nothing in it. You see, David, mother and I are used to your yarns, and so we take them as a matter of course; but the real fact is, they are very interesting and very enticing, and you tell them like a book. You came all fresh to this lady, and, as she is very quick, she had the wit to see the merit of your descriptions directly. I can see it myself now. All young women like to be amused, David, and, above all, excited; and your stories are very exciting; that is the charm; that is what makes her eyes fire; but if that puppy there, or that book-shelf yonder, could tell her your stories, she would look at either the puppy or the book-stand with just the same eyes she looks on you with, my poor David."

"Don't say so, Eve. Let me think there is some little feeling for me inside those sweet eyes, that look so kind on me—"

"And on me, and on everybody. It is her manner. I tell you she is so to all the world. She isn't the first I've met. Trust me to read a woman, David; what can you know?"

"I know nothing; but they tell me you can fathom one another better than any man ever could," said David, sorrowfully.

"'David, just now you were telling as interesting a story as ever was. You had just got to the thrilling part."

"Oh, had I? What was I saying?"

"I can't tell you to the very word; I am not your sweetheart any more than she is; but one of the sailors was in danger of his life, and so on. You never told me the story before; I was not worth it. Well, just then does not that affected puppy choose his time to come meandering in?"

"Puppy! I call him a fine gentleman."

"Well, there isn't so much odds. In he comes; your story is broken off directly. Does she care? No, she has got one of her own set; he is not a very bright one; he is next door to a fool. No matter; before he came, to judge by her crocodile eyes, she was hot after your story; the moment he did come, she didn't care a pin for you nor your story. I gave her more than one opening to bring it on again; not she. I tell you, you are nothing but a pass time;* you suit her turn so long as none of her own set are to be had. If she would leave you for such a jackanapes as that, what would she do for a real gentleman? such a man as she is a woman, for instance, and as if there weren't plenty such in her own set—oh, you goose!"

* I write this word as the lady thought proper to pronounce it.

David interrupted her. "I have been a vain fool, and it is lucky no one has seen it but you," and he hid his face in his hands a moment; then, suddenly remembering where he was, and that this was an attitude to attract attention, he tried to laugh—a piteous effort; then he ground his teeth and said: "Let us go home. All I want now is to get out of the house. It would have been better for me if I had never set foot in it."

"Hush! be calm, David, for Heaven's sake. I am only waiting to catch her eye, and then we'll bid them good-evening."

"Very well, I'll wait"; and David fixed his eyes sadly and doggedly on the ground. "I won't look at her if I can help it," said he, resolutely, but very sadly, and turned his head away.

"Now, David," whispered Eve.

David rose mechanically and moved with his sister toward the other group. Miss Fountain turned at their approach. Somewhat to David's surprise, Eve retreated as quickly as she had advanced.

"We are to stay."

"What for?"

"She made me a signal."

"Not that I saw," said David, incredulously.

"What! didn't you see her give me a look?"

"Yes, I did. But what has that to do with it?"

"That look was as much as to say, Please stay a little longer; I have something to say to you."

"Good Heavens!"

"I think it is about a bonnet, David. I asked her to put me in the way of getting one made like hers. She does wear heavenly bonnets."

"Ay. I did well to listen to you, Eve; you see I can't even read her face, much less her heart. I saw her look up, but that was all. How is a poor fellow to make out such craft as these, that can signal one another a whole page with a flash of the eye? Ah!"

"There, David, he is going. Was I right?"

Mr. Talboys was, in fact, taking leave of Miss Fountain. The old gentleman convoyed his friend. As the door closed on them Miss Fountain's face seemed to catch fire. Her sweet complacency gave way to a half-joyous, half-irritated small energy. She came gliding swiftly, though not hurriedly, up to Eve. "Thank you for seeing." Then she settled softly and gradually on an ottoman, saying, "Now, Mr. Dodd."

David looked puzzled. "What is it?" and he turned to his interpreter, Eve.

But it was Lucy who replied: "'His messmate was crying like a child. At sunrise poor Tom must die. Then up rose one fellow' (we have not any idea who one fellow means in these narratives—have we, Miss Dodd?) 'and cried, "I have it, messmates. Tom isn't dead yet."' Now, Mr. Dodd, between that sentence and the one that is to follow all that has happened in this room was a hideous dream. On that understanding we have put up with it. It is now happily dispersed, and we—go ahead again."

"I see, Eve, she thinks she would like some more of that China yarn."

"Her sentiments are not so tame. She longs for it, thirsts for it, and must and will have it—if you will be so very obliging, Mr. Dodd." The contrast between all this singular vivacity of Miss Fountain and the sudden return to her native character and manner in the last sentence struck the sister as very droll—seemed to the brother so winning, that, scarcely master of himself, he burst out: "You shan't ask me twice for that, or anything I can give you;" and it was with burning cheeks and happy eyes he resumed his tale of bold adventure and skill on one side, of numbers, danger and difficulty on the other. He told it now like one inspired, and both the young ladies hung panting and glowing on his words.

David and Eve went home together.

David was in a triumphant state, but waited for Eve to congratulate him. Eve was silent.

At last David could refrain no longer. "Why, you say nothing."

"No. Common sense is too good to be wasted; don't go so fast."

"No. There—I heave to for convoy to close up. Would it be wasted on me? ha! ha!"

"To-night. There you go pelting on again."

"Eve, I can't help it. I feel all canvas, with a cargo of angels' feathers and sunshine for ballast."

"Moonshine."

"Sun, moon, and stars, and all that is bright by night or day. I'll tell you what to do; you keep your head free, and come on under easy sail; I'll stand across your bows with every rag set and drawing, so then I shall be always within hail."

This sober-minded maneuver was actually carried out. The little corvette sailed steadily down the middle of the lane; the great merchantman went pitching and rolling across her bows; thus they kept together, though their rates of sailing were so different.

Merry Eve never laughed once, but she smiled, and then sighed.

David did not heed her. All of a moment his heart vented itself in a sea-ditty so loud, and clear, and mellow, that windows opened, and out came nightcapped heads to hear him carol the lusty stave, making night jolly.

Meantime, the weather being balmy, Mr. Fountain had walked slowly with Mr. Talboys in another direction. Mr. Talboys inquired, "Who were these people?"

Oh, only two humble neighbors," was the reply.

"I never met them anywhere. They are received in the neighborhood?"

"Not in society, of course."

"I don't understand you. Have not I just met them here?"

"That is not the way to put it," said the old gentleman, a little confused. "You did not meet them; you did me and my niece the honor to dine with us, and the Dodds dropped in to tea—quite another matter."

"Oh, is it?"

"Is it not? I see you have been so long out of England you have forgotten these little distinctions; society would go to the deuce without them. We ask our friends, and persons of our own class, to dinner, but we ask who we like to tea in this county. Don't you like her? She is the prettiest girl in the village."

"Pretty and pert."

"Ha! ha! that is true. She is saucy enough, and amusing in proportion."

"It is the man I alluded to."

"What, David? ay, a very worthy lad. He is a downright modest, well-informed young man."

"I don't doubt his general merits, but let me ask you a serious question: his evident admiration of Miss Fountain?"

"His ad-mi-ration of Miss Fountain?"

"Is it agreeable to you?"

"It is a matter of consummate indifference to me."

"But not, I think, to her. She showed a submission to the cub's impertinence, and a desire to please instead of putting him down, that made me suspect. Do you often ask Mr. Dodd—what a name!—to tea?"

"My dear friend, I see that, with all your accomplishments, you have something to learn. You want insight into female character. Now I, who must go to school to you on most points, can be of use to you here." Then, seeing that Talboys was mortified at being told thus gently there was a department of learning he had not fathomed, he added: "At all events, I can interpret my own niece to you. I have known her much longer than you have."

Mr. Talboys requested the interpreter to explain the pleasure his niece took in Mr. Dodd's fiddle.

"Part politeness, part sham. Why, she wanted not to ask them this evening, the fiddle especially. I'll give you the clue to Lucy; she is a female Chesterfield, and the droll thing is she is polite at heart as well. Takes it from her mother: she was something between an angel and a duchess."

"Politeness does not account for the sort of partiality she showed for these Dodds while I was in the room."

"Pure imagination, my dear friend. I was there; and had so monstrous a phenomenon occurred I must have seen it. If you think she could really prefer their society to yours, you are as unjust to her as yourself. She may have concealed her real preference out of finesse, or perhaps she has observed that our inferiors are touchy, and ready to fancy we slight them for those of our own rank."

Talboys shrugged his shoulders; he was but half convinced. "Her enthusiasm when the cub scraped the fiddle went beyond mere politeness."

"Beyond other people's, you mean. Nothing on earth ever went beyond hers—ha! ha! ha! To-morrow night, if you like, we will have my gardener, Jack Absolom, in to tea."

"No, I thank you. I have no wish to go beyond Mr. and Miss Dodd."

"Oh, only for an experiment. The first minute Jack will be wretched, and want to sink through the floor; but in five minutes you will fancy Lucy will have made Jack Absolom at home in my drawing-room. He will be laying down the law about Jonquilles, and she all sweetness, curiosity, and enthusiasm outside—ennui in."

"Can her eyes glisten out of politeness?" inquired Talboys, with a subdued sneer.

"Why not?"

"They could shed tears, perhaps, for the same motive?" said Talboys, with crushing irony.

"Well! Hum! I'd back them at four to seven."

Mr. Talboys was silent, and his manner showed that he was a little mortified at a subject turning to joke which he had commenced seriously. He must stop this annoyance. He said severely, "It is time to come to an understanding with you."

At these words, and, above all, at their solemn tone, the senior pricked his ears and prepared his social diplomacy.

"I have visited very frequently at your house, Mr. Fountain."

"Never without being welcome, my dear sir."

"You have, I think, divined one reason of my very frequent visits here."

"I have not been vain enough to attribute them entirely to my own attractions."

"You approve the homage I render to that other attraction?"

"Unfeignedly."

"Am I so fortunate as to have her suffrage, too?"

"I have no better means of knowing than you have."

"Indeed! I was in hopes you might have sounded her inclinations."

"I have scrupulously avoided it," replied the veteran. "I had no right to compromise you upon mere conjecture, however reasonable. I awaited your authority to take any move in so delicate a matter. Can you blame me? On one side my friend's dignity, on the other a young lady's peace of mind, and that young lady my brother's daughter."

"You were right, my dear sir; I see and appreciate your reserve, your delicacy, though I am about to remove its cause. I declare myself to you your niece's admirer; have I your permission to address her?"

"You have, and my warmest wishes for your success."

"Thank you. I think I may hope to succeed, provided I have a fair chance afforded me."

"I will take care you shall have that."

"I should prefer not to have others buzzing about the lady whose affection I am just beginning to gain."

"You pay this poor sailor an amazing compliment," said Mr. Fountain, a little testily; "if he admires Lucy it can only be as a puppy is struck with the moon above. The moon does not respond to all this wonder by descending into the whelp's jaws—no more will my niece. But that is neither here nor there; you are now her declared suitor, and you have a right to stipulate; in short, you have only to say the word, and 'exeunt Dodds,' as the play-books say."

"Dodds? I have no objection to the lady. Would it not be possible to invite her to tea alone?"

"Quite possible, but useless. She would not stir out without her brother."

"She seems a little person likely to give herself airs. Well, then, in that case, though as you say I am no doubt raising Mr. Dodd to a false importance, still—"

"Say no more; we should indulge the whims of our friends, not attack them with reasons. You will see the Dodds no more in my house."

"Oh, as to that, just as you please. Perhaps they would be as well out of it," said Talboys, with a sudden affectation of carelessness. I must not take you too far. Good-night."

"Go-o-d night!"

Poor David. He was to learn how little real hold upon society has the man who can only instruct and delight it.

Mr. Fountain bustled home, rubbing his hands with delight. "Aha!" thought he; "jealous! actually jealous! absurdly jealous! That is a good sign. Who would have thought so proud a man could be jealous of a sailor? I have found out your vulnerable point, my friend. I'll tell Lucy; how she will laugh. David Dodd! Now we know how to manage him, Lucy and I. If he freezes back again, we have but to send for David Dodd and his fiddle." He bustled home, and up into the drawing-room to tell Lucy Mr. Talboys had at last declared himself. His heart felt warm. He would settle six thousand pounds on Mrs. Talboys during his life and his whole fortune after his death.

He found the drawing-room empty. He rang the bell. "Where is Miss Fountain?" John didn't know, but supposed she had gone to her room.

"You don't know? You never know anything. Send her maid to me."

The maid came and courtesied demurely at the door.

"Tell your mistress I want to speak to her directly—before she undresses."

The maid went out, and soon returned to say that her mistress had retired to rest; but that, if he pleased, she would rise, and just make a demi-toilet, and come to him. This smooth and fair-sounding proposal was not, I grieve to say, so graciously received as offered. "Much obliged," snapped old Fountain. "Her demi-toilette will keep me another hour out of my bed, and I get no sleep after dinner now among you. Tell her to-morrow at breakfast time will do."



CHAPTER IV.

DAVID DODD was so radiant and happy for a day or two that Eve had not the heart to throw cold water on him again.

Three days elapsed, and no invitation to Font Abbey; on this his happiness cooled of itself. But when day after day rolled by, and no Font Abbey, he was dashed, uneasy, and, above all, perplexed. What could be the reason? Had he, with his rough ways, offended her? Had she been too dignified to resent it at the time? Was he never to go to Font Abbey again? Eve's first feeling was unmixed satisfaction. We have seen already that she expected no good from this rash attachment. For a single moment her influence and reasons had seemed to wean David from it; but his violent agitation and joy at two words of kindly curiosity from Miss Fountain, and the instant unreasonable revival of love and hope, showed the strange power she had acquired over him. It made Eve tremble.

But now the Fountains were aiding her to cure this folly. She had read them right, had described them to David aright. A wind of caprice had carried him and her into Font Abbey; another such wind was carrying them out. No event had happened. Mr. and Miss Fountain had been seen more than once in the village of late. "They have dropped us, and thank Heaven!" said Eve, in her idiomatic way.

She pitied David deeply, and was kinder and kinder to him now, to show him she felt for him; but she never mentioned the Font Abbey people to him either to praise or blame them, though it was all she could do to suppress her satisfaction at the turn their insolent caprice had taken.

That satisfaction was soon clouded. This time, instead of rousing himself and his pride, David sank into a moody despondency; varied by occasional fretfulness. His appetite went, and his bright color, and his elastic step. This silent sadness was so new in him, such a contrast to his natural temperature, large, genial, and ever cheerful, that Eve could not bear it. "I must shake him out of this, at all hazards," thought she: yet she put off the experiment, and put it off, partly in hopes that David would speak first, partly because she saw the wound she would probe was deep, and she winced beforehand for her patient.

Meantime, prolonged doubt and suspense now goaded with their intolerable stings the active spirit that chill misgivings had at first benumbed. Spurred into action by these torments, David had already watched several days in the neighborhood of Font Abbey, determined to speak to Miss Fountain, and find out whether he had given her offense; for this was still his uppermost idea. Having failed in this attempt at an interview with her, he was now meditating a more resolute course, and he paced the little gravel-walk at home debating in himself the pros and cons. Raising his head suddenly, he saw his sister walking slowly at the other end of the path. She was coming toward him, but her eyes were bent thoughtfully on the ground. David slipped behind some bushes, not to have his unhappiness and his meditations interrupted. The lover and the lunatic have points in common.

He had been there some time when a grave little voice spoke quietly to him from the lawn. "David, I want to speak to you." David came out.

"Here am I."

"Oh, I knew where you were. Don't do that again, sir, please, or you'll catch it."

"Oh, I didn't think you saw me," said David, somewhat confusedly.

"What has that to do with it, stupid? David," continued she, assuming a benevolent, cheerful, and somewhat magnificent nonchalance, "I sometimes wonder you don't come to me with your troubles. I might advise you as well as here and there one. But perhaps you think now, because I am naturally gay, I am not sensible. You mustn't go by that altogether. Manner is very deceiving. The most foolishly conducted men and women ever I met were as grave as judges, and as demure as cats after cream. Bless you, there is folly in every heart. Your slow ones bottle it up for use against the day wisdom shall be most needed. My sort let it fizz out at their mouths in their daily talk, and keep their good sense for great occasions, like the present."

"Have we drifted among the proverbs of Solomon?" inquired David, dryly. "No need to make so many tacks, Eve. Haven't I seen your sense and profited by it—I and one or two more? Who but you has steered the house this ten years, and commanded the lubberly crew?"*

* The reader must not be misled by the familiar phraseology of these two speakers to suppose that anything the least droll or humorous was intended by either of them at any part of this singular dialogue. Their hearts were sad and their faces grave.

"And then again, David, where the heart is concerned, young women are naturally in advance of young men."

"God knows. He made them both. I don't."

"Why, all the world knows it. And then, besides, I am five years older than you.

"So mother says; but I don't know how to believe it. No one would say so to look at you."

"I'll tell you, David. Folk that have small features look a deal younger than their years; and you know poor father used to say my face was the pattern of a flat-iron. So nobody gives me my age; but I am five good years older than you, only you needn't go and tell the town crier."

"Well, Eve?"

"Well, then, put all these together, and now, why not come to me for friendly advice and the voice of reason?"

"Reason! reason! there are other lights besides reason."

"Jack-o'-lantern, eh? and Will-o'-the-wisp."

"Eve, nobody can advise me that can't feel for me. Nobody can feel for me that doesn't know my pain; and you don't know that, because you were never in love."

"Oh, then, if I had ever been in love, you would listen."

"As I would to an angel from Heaven."

"And be advised by me."

"Why not? for then you'd be competent to advise; but now you haven't an idea what you are talking about."

"What a pity! Don't you think it would be as well if you were not to speak to me so sulky?"

"I ask your pardon; Eve. I did not mean to offend you."

"Davy, dear—for God's sake what is this chill that has come between you and me? You are a man. Speak out like a man."

David turned his great calm, sorrowful eye full upon her.

"Well, then, Eve, if the truth must be told, I am disappointed in you."

"Oh, David."

"A little. You are not the girl I took you for. You know which way my fancy lies, yet you keep steering me in the teeth of it; then you see how down-hearted I am this while, but not a word of comfort or hope comes from you, and me almost dried up for want of one."

"Make one word of it, David—I am not a sister to you."

"I don't say that, but you might be kinder; you are against me just when I want you with me the most."

"Now this is what I like," said Eve, cheerfully; "this is plain speaking. So now it is my turn, my lad. Do you remember Balaam and his ass?"

"Sure," said David; but, used as he was to Eve's transitions, he couldn't help staring a little at being carried eastward ho so suddenly.

"Then what did the ass say when she broke silence at last?"

"Well, you know, Eve; I take shame to say I don't remember her very words, but the tune of them I do. Why, she sang out, 'Avast there! it is first fault, so you needn't be so hasty with your thundering rope's end."'

"There! You'd make a nice commentator. You haven't taken it up one bit; you are as much in the dark as our parson. He preached on her the very Sunday you came home, and it was all I could do to help whipping up into the pulpit, and snatching away his book, and letting daylight in on them."

David was scandalized at the very idea of such a breach of discipline. "That is ridiculous," said he; "one can't have two skippers in a church any more than in a ship, brig, or bark. But you can let daylight in on me."

"I mean. To begin: the ass was in the right and Balaam in the wrong; so what becomes of your 'first fault?' She was frugal of her words, but every syllable was a needle; the worst is, some skins are so thick our needles won't enter 'em. Says she, 'This seven years you have known me; always true to the bridle and true to you. Did ever I disobey you before? Then why go and fancy I do it without some great cause that you can't see?' Then the man's eyes were open, and he saw it was destruction his old friend had run back from, and galled his foot to save his life; so of course he thanked her, and blessed her then. Not he. He was too much of a man."

"Ay, ay, I see; but what is the moral? for I have no heart to expound riddles."

"Oh, I'll tell you the moral sooner than you'll like, perhaps. The ass is a type, David. In Holy Writ you know almost everything is a type. When a thing means one thing and stands for another, that's a type."

"Ducks can swim—at least I've heard so. Now if you could tell me what she is a type of?"

"What, the ass? Don't you know? Why, of women, to be sure—of us poor creatures of burden, underrated and misunderstood all the world over. And Balaam he stands for men, and for you at the head of them," cried she, turning round with flashing eyes on David; "you have known me and my true affection more than seven years, or seventeen. I carried you in my arms when you were a year old and I was six. You were my little curly-headed darling, and have been from that day to this. Did ever I cross you, or be cold or unkind to you, till the other day?"

"No, Eve, no, no, no! Come sit beside me.

"Then shouldn't you have said, 'Don't slobber me; I won't have it; you and I are bad friends.' Oughtn't you to have said, 'Eve could never give herself the pain of crossing me' (no, there isn't a man in the world with gumption enough to say that—that is a woman's thought); but at least you might have said, 'She sees rocks ahead that I can't.' (Balaam couldn't see the drawn sword ahead, but there it was.) it was for you to say, 'My sister Eve would not change from gay to grave all at once, and from indulging me in everything to thwarting me and vexing me, unless she saw some great danger threatening your peace of mind, your career in life, your very reason, perhaps.'"

"I have been to blame, Eve; but speak out and let me know the worst. You have heard something against her character? Speak plain out, for Heaven's sake!"

"It is all very well of you to say speak plain out, but there are things girls don't like to speak about to any man. But after what you said, that you would listen to me if I—so it is my duty. You will see my face red enough in about a minute. Two years ago I couldn't have done this even for you. It is hard I must expose my own folly—my own crime."

"Why, Eve, lass, how you tremble! Drop it now! drop it!"

"Hold your tongue!" said Eve, sharply, but in considerable agitation. "It is too late now, after something you have said to me. If I didn't speak out now, I should be like that bad man you told us of, who let out the beacon light when the wind was blowing hard on shore. Listen, David, and take my words to heart. The road you are on now I have been upon, only I went much farther on it than you shall go." She resumed after a short pause: "You remember Henry Dyke?"

"What, the young clergyman, who used to be always alongside you at our last anchorage?"

"Yes. He was just such a man as Miss Fountain is a woman. He was but a dish of skim-milk, yet he could poison my life."

Then Eve told the story of her heart. She described her lover as he appeared to her in the early days of courtship, young, handsome, good, noble in sentiment, and warm and tender in manner. Halcyon days—not a speck to be seen on love's horizon.

Then she delineated the fine gradations by which the illusion faded, too slowly and too late for her to withdraw the love she had conceived for his person at that time when person and mind seemed alike superior. She painted with the delicate touch of her sex the portrait of a man and a scholar born to please all the world, and incapable of condensing his affections; a pious flirt, no longer stimulated to genuine ardor by doubts of success, but too kind-hearted to pain her beyond measure when a little factitious warmth from time to time would give her hours of happiness, keep her, on the whole, content, and, above all, retain her his. Then she shifted the mirror to herself, the fiery and faithful one, and showed David what centuries of torture a good little creature like this Dyke, with its charming exterior, could make a quick, and ardent, and devoted nature suffer in a year or two. Came out in her narrative, link by link, the gentle delicious complacency of the first period, the chill airs that soon ruffled it, the glowing hopes, the misgivings that dashed them; then the diminution of confidence, more complexing and exasperating than its utter loss; the alternations of joy and doubt, the fever and the ague of the wounded spirit; then the gusts of hatred followed by deeper love; later still, the periodical irritation at hopes long deferred, and still gleams of bliss between the paroxysms, so that now, as the vulgar say in their tremendous Saxon, she "spent her time between heaven and hell"; last of all, the sickness and recklessness of the wornout and wearied heart over which melancholy or fury impended.

It was at this crisis when, as she could now see on a calm retrospect, her mind was distempered, a new and terrible passion stepped upon the scene—jealousy. A friend came and whispered her, "Mr. Dyke was courting another woman at the same time, and that other woman was rich."

"David, at that word a flash of lightning seemed to go through me, and show me the man as he really was."

"The mean scoundrel, to sell himself for money!!"

"No, David, he would not have sold himself, with his eyes open, any more than perhaps your Miss Fountain would; but what little heart he had he could give to any girl that was not a fright. He was a self-deceiver and a general lover, and such characters and their affections sink by nature to where their interest lies. Iron is not conscious, yet it creeps toward the loadstone. Well, while she was with me I held up and managed to question her as coldly as I speak to you now, but as soon as she left me I went off in violent hysterics."

"Poor Eve!"

"She had not been gone an hour when doesn't the Devil put it into his head to send me a long, affectionate letter, and in the postscript he invited himself to supper the same afternoon. Then I got up and dried my eyes, and I seemed to turn into stone with resolution. 'Come!' I said, 'but don't think you shall ever go back to her. Your troubles and mine shall end to-night.'"

"Why, Eve, you turn pale with thinking of it. I fear you have had worse thoughts pass through your mind than any man is worth."

"David, your blood was in my veins, and mine is in yours.

"If I didn't think so! The Lord deliver us from temptation! We don't know ourselves nor those we love."

"He had driven me mad."

"Mad, indeed. What! had you the heart to see the man bleed to death—the man you had loved—you, my little gentle Eve?"

"Oh no, no; no blood!" said Eve, with a shudder. "Laudanum!"

"Good God!"

"Oh, I see your thought. No, I was not like the men in the newspapers, that kill the poor woman with a sure hand, and then give themselves a scratch. It was to be one spoonful for him, but two for me. I can't dwell on it" (and she hid her face in her hands); "it is too terrible to remember how far I was misled. Who, think you, saved us both?" David could not guess.

"A little angel—my good angel, that came home from sea that very afternoon. When I saw your curly head, and your sweet, sunburned face come in at the door, guess if I thought of putting death in the pot after that? Ah! the love of our own flesh and blood, that is the love—God and good angels can smile on it."

"Yes; but go on," said David, impatiently.

"It is ended, David. They say a woman's heart is a riddle, and perhaps you will think so when I tell you that when he had brought me down to this, and hadn't died for it, I turned as cold as ice to him that minute, once and forever. I looked back at the precipice, and I hated him. Ay, from that evening he was like the black dog to my eye. I used to slip anywhere to hide out of his way—just as you did out of mine but now."

"Can't you forget that? Well, to be sure. Well?"

"So then (now you may learn what these skim-milk cheeses are made of), when he found he was my aversion, he fell in love with me again as hot as ever; tried all he could think of to win me back; wrote a letter every day; came to me every other day; and when he saw it was all over for good between us he cried and bellowed till my hate all went, and scorn came in its place. Next time we met he played quite another part—the calm, heart-broken Christian; gave me his blessing; went down on his knees, and prayed a beautiful prayer, that took me off my guard and made me almost respect him; then went away, and quietly married the girl with money; and six months after wrote to me he was miserable, dated from the vicarage her parents had got him."

"Now, you know, if he wasn't a parson, d—n me if I'd turn in to-night till I'd rope's-ended that lubber!"

"As if I'd let you dirty your hands with such rubbish! I sent the note back to him with just one line, 'Such a fool as you are has no right to be a villain.' There, David, there is your poor sister's life. Oh, what I went through for that man! Often I said, is Heaven just, to let a poor, faithful, loving girl, who has done no harm, be played with on the hook, and tortured hot and cold, day after day, month after month, year after year, as I was? But now I see why it was permitted; it was for your sake, that you might profit by my sharp experience, and not fling your heart away on frozen mud, as I did;" and, happy in this feminine theory of Divine justice, Eve rested on her brother a look that would have adorned a seraph, then took him gently round the neck and laid her little cheek flat to his.

She felt as if she had just saved a beloved life.

Who can estimate the value of a happiness so momentary, yet so holy?

Presently looking up, she saw David's face illuminated. "What is it?" she asked joyously; "you look pleased."

David was "pleased because now he was sure she could feel for him, and would side with him."

"That I do; but, David, as it is all over between you and her—"

"All over? Am I dead then?"

Eve gasped with astonishment: "Why, what have I been telling you all this for?"

"Who should you tell your trouble to but your own brother? Why, Eve—ha! ha!—you don't really see any likeness between your case and mine, do you? You are not so blind as to compare her with that thundering muff?"

"They are brother and sister, as we are," was the reply. "Ever since I saw you looked her way, my eye has hardly been off her, and she is Henry Dyke in petticoats."

"I don't thank you for saying that. Well, and if she is, what has that to do with it? I am not a woman. I am not forced to lie to waiting for a wind, as the girls are. I am a man. I can work for the wish of my heart, and, if it does not come to meet me, I can overhaul it." Eve was a little staggered by this thrust, but she was not one to show an antagonist any advantage he had obtained. "David," said she, coldly, "it must come to one of two things; either she will send you about your business in form, which is a needless affront for you and me both, or she will hold you in hand, and play with you and drive you mad. Take warning; remember what is in our blood. Father was as well as you are, but agitation and vexation robbed him of his reason for a while; and you and I are his children. Milk of roses creeps along in that young lady's veins, but fire gallops in ours. Give her up, David, as she has you. She has let you escape; don't fly back like a moth to the candle! You shan't, however; I won't let you."

"Eve," said David, quietly, "you argue well, but you can't argue light into dark, nor night into day. She is the sun to me. I have seen her light; and now I can't live without it."

He added, more calmly: "It is her or none. I never saw a girl but this that I wanted to see twice, and I never shall."

"But it is that which frightens me for you, David. Often I have wished I could see you flirt a bit and harden your heart."

"And break some poor girl's."

"Oh, hang them! they always contrive to pass it on. What do I care for girls! they are not my brother. But no, David, I can't believe you will go against me and my judgment after the insult she has put on you. No more about it, but just you choose between my respect and this wild-goose chase."

"I choose both," said David, quietly. "Both you shan't have"; and, with this, up bounced Eve, and stood before him bristling like a cat-o'mountain. David tried to soothe her—to coax her—in vain; her cheek was on fire, and her eyes like basilisks'. It was a picture to see the pretty little fury stand so erect and threatening, great David so humble and deprecating, yet so dogged. At last he took out his knife; it was not one of your stabbing-knives, but the sort of pruning-knife that no sailor went without in those days. "Now," said he, sadly, "take and cut my head off—cut me to pieces, if you will—I won't wince or complain; and then you will get your way; but while I do live I shall love her, and I can't afford to lose her by sitting twiddling my thumbs, waiting for luck. I'll try all I know to win her, and if I lose her I won't blame her, but myself for not finding out how to please her; and with that I'll live a bachelor all my days for her, or else die, just as God wills—I shan't much care which."

"Oh, I know you, you obstinate toad," said Eve, clinching her teeth and her little hand. Then she burst out furiously: "Are you quite resolved?"

"Quite, dear Eve," said David, sadly—but somehow it was like a rock speaking.

"Then there is my hand," said Eve, with an instant transition to amiable cheerfulness that dazzled a body like a dark lantern flying open. Used as David was to her, it stupefied him; he stared at her, and was all abroad. "Well, what is the wonder now?" inquired Eve; "there are but two of us. We must be together somehow or another must we not? You won't be wise with me; well, then, I'll be a fool with you. I'll help you with this girl."

"Oh, my dear Eve!"

"You won't gain much. Without me you hadn't the shadow of a chance, and with me you haven't a chance, that is all the odds."

"I have! I have! you have taken away my breath with joy;" and David was quite overcome with the turn Eve had taken in his favor.

"Oh, you need not thank me," said Eve, tossing her head with a hypocrisy all her own. "It is not out of affection for you I do it, you may be very sure of that; but it looks so ridiculous to see my brother slipping out of my way behind a tree as soon as he sees me coming—oh! oh! oh! oh!" And a violent burst of sobs and tears revealed how that incident had rankled in this stoical little heart.

David, with the tear in his own eye, clasped her in his arms, and kissed her and coaxed her and begged her again and again to forgive him. This she did internally at the first word; but externally no; pouted and sobbed till she had exacted her full tribute, then cleared up with sudden alacrity and inquired his plans.

"I am going to call at Font Abbey, and find out whether I have offended her."

Eve demurred, "That would never do. You would betray yourself and there would be an end of you. How good I am not to let you go. No, I'll call there. I shall quietly find out whether it is her doing that we have not been invited so long, or whose it is. You stay where you are. I won't be a minute."

When the minute was thirty-five, David came under her window and called her. She popped her head out: "Well?"

"What are you doing?"

"Putting on my bonnet."

"Why, you have been an hour."

"You wouldn't have me go there a fright, would you?"

At last she came down and started for Font Abbey, and David was left to count the minutes till her return. He paced the gravel sailor-wise, taking six steps and then turning, instead of going in each direction as far as he could. He longed and feared his sister's return. One hour—two hours elapsed; still he walked a supposed deck on the little lawn—six steps and then turn. At last he saw her coming in the distance; he ran to meet her; but when he came up with her he did not speak, but looked wistfully in her face, and tried hard to read it and his fate.

"Now, David, don't make a fool of yourself, or I won't tell you."

"No, no. I'll be calm, I will—be—calm."

"Well, then, for one thing, she is to drink tea with us this evening."

"She? Who? What? Where? Oh!"

"Here."



CHAPTER V.

MR. FOUNTAIN sat at breakfast opposite his niece with a twinkle set in his eye like a cherry-clack in a tree, relishing beforehand her smiles, and blushes, and gratitude to him for having hooked and played his friend, so that now she had but to land him. "I'll just finish this delicious cup of coffee," thought he, "and then I'll tell you, my lady." While he was slowly sipping said cup, Lucy looked up and said graciously to him, "How silly Mr. Talboys was last night—was he not, dear?"

"Talboys? silly? what? do you know? Why, what on earth do you mean?"

"Silly is a harsh word—injudicious, then—praising me a tort et a travers, and was downright ill-bred—was discourteous to another of our guests, Mr. Dodd."

"Confound Mr. Dodd! I wish I had never invited him."

"So do I. If you remember, I dissuaded you."

"I do remember now. What! you don't like him, either?"

"There you are mistaken, dear. I esteem Mr. Dodd highly, and Miss Dodd, too, in spite of her manifest defects; but in making up parties, however small, we should choose our guests with reference to each other, not merely to ourselves. Now, forgive me, it was clear beforehand that Mr. Talboys and the Dodds, especially Miss Dodd, would never coalesce; hence my objection in inviting them; but you overruled me—with a rod of iron, dear."

"Yes; but why? Because you gave me such a bad reason; you never said a word about this incongruity."

"But it was in my mind all the time."

"Then why didn't it come out?"

"Because—because something else would come out instead. As if one gave one's real reasons for things!! Now, uncle dear, you allow me great liberties, but would it have been quite the thing for me to lecture you upon the selection of your own convives?"

"Why, you have ended by doing it."

Lucy colored. "Not till the event proves—not till—"

"Not till your advice is no longer any use."

Lucy, driven into a corner, replied by an imploring look, which had just the opposite effect of argument. It instantly disarmed the old boy; he grinned superior, and spared his supple antagonist three sarcasms that were all on the tip of his tongue. He was rewarded for his clemency by a little piece of advice, delivered by his niece with a sort of hesitating and penitent air he did not understand one bit, eyes down upon the cloth all the time.

It came to this. He was to listen to her suggestions with a prejudice in their favor if he could, and give them credit for being backed by good reasons; at all events, he was never to do them the injustice to suppose they rested on those puny considerations she might put forward in connection with them.

"Silly" is a term carrying with it a certain promptness and decision; above all, it was a very remarkable word for Lucy to use. "The girl is a martinet in these things," thought he; "she can't forgive the least bit of impoliteness. I suppose he snubbed Jack Tar. What a crime! But I had better let this blow over before I go any farther." So he postponed his disclosure till to-morrow.

But, before to-morrow came, he had thought it over again, and convinced himself it would be the wiser course not to interfere at all for the present, except by throwing the young people constantly together. He had lived long enough to see that, in nine cases out of ten, husband and wife might be defined "a man and a woman that were thrown a good deal together—generally in the country." A marries B, and C D; but, under similar circumstances, i.e., thrown together, A would have married D, and C B. This applies to puppy dogs, male and female, as well as to boys and girls.

Perhaps a personal feeling had some little share, too, in bringing him to the above conclusion. He was a bit of a schemer—liked to play puppets. At present, his niece and friend were the largest and finest puppets he had on hand; the day he should bring them to a mutual, rational understanding, the puppet-strings would fall from his hands and the puppets turn independent agents. He represented to Talboys that Lucy was young and very innocent in some respects; that marriage did not seem to run in her head as in most girls'; that a precipitate avowal might startle her, and raise unnecessary difficulties by putting her on her guard too early in their acquaintance. "You have no rival," he concluded; "best win her quietly by degrees. Undermine the coy jade! she is worth it." Cool Talboys acquiesced. David had spurred him out of his pace one night; but David was put out of the way; the course was clear; and, as he could walk over it now, why gallop?

Childish as his friend's jealousy of this poor sailor had seemed to Mr. Fountain, still, the idea once started, he could not help inspecting Lucy to see how she would take his sudden exclusion from these parties. Now Lucy missed the Dodds very much, and was surprised to see them invited no more. But it was not in her character to satisfy a curiosity of this sort by putting a point-blank question to the person who could tell her in two words. She was one of those thorough women whose instinct it is to find out little things, not to ask about them. When day after day passed by, and the Dodds were not invited, it flashed through her mind, first, that there must be some reason for this; secondly, that she had only to take no notice, and the reason, if any, would be sure to pop out. She half suspected Talboys, but gave him no sign of suspicion. With unruffled demeanor and tranquil patience, she watched demurely for disclosures from her uncle or from him like the prettiest little velvet panther conceivable lying flat in a blind path, deranging nobody, but waiting with amiable tranquillity for her friends to come her way.

Thus, under the smooth surface of the little society at Font Abbey finesse was cannily at work. But the surface of every society is like the skin of a man—hides a deal of secret machinery.

Here were two undermining a "coy jade" (perhaps, on the whole, Uncle Fountain, it might be more prudent in you not to call her that name again; you see she is my heroine, and I am a man that could cut you out of this story, and nobody miss you), and the coy jade watching for the miners like a sweet little velvet panther, and, to fling away metaphor, an honest heart set aching sore, hard by, for having come among such a lot.



CHAPTER VI.

A FABLE tells us a fowler one day saw sitting in tree a wood-pigeon. This is a very shy bird, so he had to creep and maneuver to get within gunshot unseen, unheard. He stole from tree to tree, and muffled his footsteps in the long grass so adroitly that, just as he was going to pull the trigger, he stepped light as a feather on a venomous snake. It bit; he died.

This is instructive and pointed, but a trifle severe.

What befell Uncle Fountain, busy enmeshing his cock and hen pheasant, netting a niece and a friend, went to the same tune, but in a lower key, as befitted a domestic tale.*

* "Domestic," you are aware, is Latin for "tame." Ex., "domestic fowl," "domestic drama," "story of domestic intereet," "or chronicle of small beer,"

Among his letters at breakfast-time came one which he had no sooner read than he flung on the table and went into a fury. Lucy sat aghast; then inquired in tender anxiety what was the matter.

Angry explanations are apt to be dark ones. "It is a confounded shame—it is a trick, child—it is a do."

"Ah! what is that, uncle? 'a do'?—'a do'?"

"Yes, 'a do.' He knew I hated figures; can't bear the sight of them, and the cursed responsibility of adding them up right."

"But who knew all this?"

"He came over here bursting with health, and asked me to be one of his executors—mind, one. I consented on a distinct understanding I was never to be called upon to act. He was twenty years my junior, and like so much mahogany. It was just a form; I did it to soothe a man who called himself my friend, and set his mind at rest."

"But, uncle dear, I don't understand even now. Can it be possible that a friend has abused your good nature?"

"A little," with an angry sneer.

"Has he betrayed your confidence?"

"Hasn't he?"

"Oh dear! What has he done?"

"Died, that is all," snarled the victim.

"Oh, uncle! Poor man!"

"Poor man, no doubt. But how about poor me? Why, it turns out I am sole executor."

"But, dear uncle, how could the poor soul help dying?"

"That is not candid, Lucy," said Mr. Fountain, severely. "Did ever I say he could help dying? But he could help coming here under false colors, a mahogany face, and trapping his friend."

"Uncle, what is the use—your trying to play the misanthrope with me, who know how good you are, in spite of your pretenses to the contrary? To hide your emotion from your poor niece, you go into a feigned fury, and all the time you know how sorry you are your poor friend is gone."

"Of course I am. He has secured one mourner. He might have died to all eternity if he hadn't nailed me first. See how selfish men are, and bad-hearted into the bargain. I believe that young fellow had been to a doctor, and found out he was booked in spite of his mahogany cheeks; so then he rides out here and wheedles an unguarded friend—I'm wired—I'm trapped—I'm snared."

Lucy set herself to soothe her injured relative. "You must say to yourself, 'C'est un petit matheur.'"

"Tell myself a falsehood? What shall I gain by that? Let me tell you, it is these minor troubles that send a man to Bedlam. One breeds another, till they swarm and buzz you distracted, and sting you dead. 'Petit maiheur!' it is a greater one than you have ever encountered since you have been under my wing."

"It is, dear, it is; but I hope to encounter much greater ones before I am your age."

"The deuce you do!"

"Or else I shall die without ever having lived—a vegetable, not a human being."

"Bombast! a 'flower' your lovers will call you."

"And men of sense a 'weed.' But don't let us discuss me. What I wish to know is the nature of your annoyance, dear." He explained to her with a groan that he should have to wind up all the affairs of an estate of 8,000 pounds a year, pay the annual and other encumbrances, etc., etc.

"Well, but, dear, you will be quite at home in this, you have such a turn for business."

"For my own," shrieked the old bachelor, angrily, "not for other people's. Why, Lucy, there will be half a dozen separate accounts, all of four figures. It is not as if executors were paid. And why are they not paid? There ought to be a law compelling the estates they administer to pay them, and handsomely. It never occurred to me before, but now I see the monstrous iniquity of amateur executors, amateur trustees, amateur guardians. They take business out of the hands of those who live by business. I sincerely regret my share in this injustice. If a snob works, he always expects to be paid! how much more a gentleman. He ought to be paid double—once for the work, and once for giving up his natural ease. Here am I, guardian gratis to a cub of sixteen—the worst age—done school, and not begun Oxford and governesses."

"Tutors, you mean."

"Do I? Is it the tutors the whelps fall in love with, little goose? Stop; I'll describe my 'interesting charge,' as the books call it. He has hair you could not tell from tow. He has no eyebrows—a little unfledged slippery horror. He used to come in to dessert, and turn all our stomachs except his silly father's."

"Poor orphan!"

"When you speak to him he never answers—blushes instead."

"Poor child!"

"He has read of eloquent blushes, and thinks there is no need to reply in words—blushing must be such an interesting and effective substitute."

"Poor boy, he wants a little judicious kindness. We will have him here."

"Here!" cried the old gentleman, with horror. "What! make Font Abbey a kennel!!! No, Lucy, no, this house is sacred; no nuisances admitted here. Here, on this single spot of earth, reigns comfort, and shall reign unruffled while I live. This is the temple of peace. If I must be worried, I must, but not beneath this hallowed roof."

This eloquence, delivered as it was with a sudden solemnity, told upon the mind.

"Dear Font Abbey," murmured Lucy, half closing her eyes, "how well you describe it! Societies of the cosey; the walls seem padded, the carpets velvet, and the whole structure care-proof; all is quiet gayety and sweet punctuality. Here comfort and good humor move by clock-work; that is Font Abbey. Yet you are right; if you were to be seen in it no more, it would lose the life of its charm, dear Uncle Fountain."

"Thank you, my dear—thank you. I do like to see my friends about me comfortable, and, above all, to be comfortable myself. The place is well enough, and I am bitterly sorry I must leave it, and sorry to leave you, my dear."

"Leave us? not immediately?"

"This very day. Why, the funeral is to be this week—a grand funeral—and I have to order it all. Then there are relatives to be invited—thirty letters—others to be asked to the reading of the will. It will be one hurry-scurry till we get the house clear of the corpse and the vultures; then at it I must go, head-foremost, into fathomless addition—subtraction—multiplication, and vexation. 'Oh, now forever farewell, something or other—farewell content!' You talk of misanthropy. I shall end there. Lucy."

"Yes, dear uncle."

"I never—do—a good-natured thing—but—I—bitterly—repent it. By Jupiter! the coffee is cold; the first time that has befallen me since I turned off seven servants that battled that point of comfort with me."

Lucy suggested that the coffee might have cooled a little while he was being so kind as to answer her question at unusual length. Then she came round to him bringing a fresh supply of fragrant slow poison, and sat beside him and soothed him till his ire went down, and came the calm depression of a man who, accustomed for many years to do just what he liked, found himself suddenly obliged to do something he did not like—a thing out of the groove of his habits too.

Sure enough, he left Font Abbey the same day, with a promise, exacted by Lucy, that he should make her the partner of all his vexations by writing to her every day.

"And, Lucy," said the old Parthian, as he stepped into his traveling-carriage, "my friend Talboys will miss me; pray be kind to him while I am away. He is a particular friend of mine. I may be wrong, but I do like men of known origin—of old family."

"And you are right. I will be kind to him for your sake, dear."

A slight cold confined Lucy to the house for three or four days after her uncle's departure (by the by, I think this must have been the reason of David's ill success in his endeavors to get an interview with her out of doors).

Thus circumstanced, ladies rummage.

Lucy found in a garret a chest containing a quantity of papers and parchments, and the beautifulest dust. No such dust is made in these degenerate days. Some of these MSS. bore recent dates, and were easily legible, though not so easily intelligible, being written as Gratiano spake.* The writers had omitted to put the idea'd words into red ink, so they had to be picked out with infinite difficulty from the multitude of unidea'd ones.

* "Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing . . . . his reasons are as three grains of wheat in two bushels of chaff."

Other of the MSS., more ancient, wore a double veil. They hid their sense in verbiage, and also in narrow Germanifled letters, farther deformed by contractions and ornamental flourishes, whose joint effect made a word look like a black daddy-long-legs, all sprawling fantastic limbs and the body a dot.

The perusal of these pieces was slow and painful; it was like walking or slipping about among broken ruins overgrown with nettles. But then Uncle Fountain was so anxious to hook on to the Flunkeys—oh, Ciel! what am I saying?—the Funteyns, and his direct genealogical evidence had so completely broken down. She said to herself, "Oh dear! if I could find something among these old writings, and show it him on his return." She had them all dusted and brought down, and a table-cloth laid on a long table in the drawing-room, and spelled them with a good-humored patience that belonged partly to her character, partly to her sex. A female who undertakes this sort of work does not skip as we should; the habit of needle-work in all its branches reconciles that portion of mankind to invisible progress in other matters.

Besides this, they are naturally careful, and, above all, born to endure, they carry patience into nearly all they do.*

* At about the third rehearsal of a new play our actresses bring the author's words into their heads, our actors are still all abroad, and at the first performance the breaks-down are sure to be among the males; the female jumenta carry their burden (be it of pig-lead) safe from wing to wing.

Lucy made her way manfully through all the well-written circumlocution, and in a very short time considering; but the antique [Greek] tried her eyes too much at night, so she gave nearly her whole day to it, for she was anxious to finish all before her uncle's return. It was a curious picture—Venus immersed in musty records.

One day she had studied and spelled four mortal hours, when a visitor was suddenly announced—Miss Dodd. That young lady came briskly in at the heels of the servant and caught Lucy at her work. After the first greeting, her eye rested with such undisguised curiosity on the "mouldy records" that Lucy told her in general terms what she was trying to do for her uncle. "La!" said Eve, "you will ruin your eye-sight; why not send them over to us? I will make David read them."

"And his eyesight?"

"Oh, bless you, he has a knack at reading old writing. He has made a study of it."

"If I thought I was not presuming too far on Mr. Dodd's good nature, I would send one or two of them."

"Do; and I will make him draw up a paper of the contents; I have seen him at this sort of work before now. But there, la! I suppose you know it is all vanity."

"I do it to please my poor uncle."

"And very good you are. But what the better will the poor old gentleman be? We are here to act our own part well; we can't ride up to heaven on our great-grandfather."

These maxims were somewhat coldly received, so Eve shifted her ground. "After all, I don't know why I should be the one to say that, for my own name is older than your uncle's a pretty deal."

Lucy looked puzzled; then suddenly fancying she had caught Eve's meaning, she said: "That is true. Hail mother of mankind!!" and bowed her head with graceful reverence.

Eve stared and colored, not knowing what on earth her companion meant. I am afraid it must be owned that Eve steadily eschewed books and always had. What little book-learning she had came to her filtered through David, and by this channel she accepted it willingly, even sought it at odd times, when there was no bread, pudding, dress, theology, scandal, or fun going on. She turned it off by a sudden inquiry where Mr. Fountain was; "they told me in the village he was away." Now several circumstances combined to make Lucy more communicative than usual. First, she had been studying hard; and, after long study, when a lively person comes to us, it is a great incitement to talk. Pitiful by nature, I spare you the "bent bow." Secondly, she was a little anxious lest her uncle's sudden neglect should have mortified Miss Dodd, and a neutral topic handled at length tends to replace friendly feeling without direct and unpleasant explanations. She therefore answered every question in full; told her that her uncle had lost a dear friend; that he was executor and guardian to the poor boy, now entirely an orphan. Her uncle, with his usual zeal on behalf of his friends; had gone off at once, and doubtless would not return till he had fulfilled in every respect the wishes of the deceased.

To this general sketch she added many details, suppressing the misanthropy Mr. Fountain had exhibited or affected at the first receipt of the intelligence.

In short, angelic gossip. Earthly gossip always backbites, you know. Eve missed something somehow, no doubt the human or backbiting element; still, it was gossip, sacred gossip, far dearer than Shakespeare to the female heart, and Eve's eyes glowed with pleasure and her tongue plied eager questions.

With all this, such instinctive artists are these delicate creatures, both these ladies were secretly in ambush, Lucy to learn whether Eve and David were hurt or surprised at not being invited of late, and why she and he had not called since; Eve to find out what was the cause David and she had been so suddenly dropped: was it Lucy's doing or whose?

Each lady being bent on receiving, not on making revelations, nothing transpired on either side. Seeing this, Eve became impatient and made a bold move.

"Miss Fountain," said she, "you are all alone. I wish you would come over to us this evening and have tea."

Lucy did not immediately reply. Eve saw her hesitation. "It is but a poor place," said she, "to ask you to."

"I will come," said the lady, directly. "I will come with great pleasure."

"Will seven be too early for you?"

"Oh, no, I don't dine now my uncle is away. I call luncheon dinner."

"Perhaps, six, then?"

"Pray let me come at your usual hour. Why derange your family for one person?" Six o'clock was settled.

"I must take some of this rubbish with me," said Eve; "come along, my dears"; and with an ample and mock enthusiastic gesture she caught up an armful of manuscripts.