t concerned her darling Anachronism, was especially inquisitive that
evening. She made me say where I had been, and what I had done, and how
I had spent my time; and Fanny Trevanion (whom she had seen, by the way,
three or four times, and whom she thought the prettiest person in the
world), oh, she must know exactly what I thought of Fanny Trevanion!

And all this while my father seemed in thought; and so, with my arm
over my mother's chair, and my hand in hers, I answered my mother's
questions, sometimes by a stammer, sometimes by a violent effort at
volubility; when at some interrogatory that went tingling right to my
heart I turned uneasily, and there were my father's eyes fixed on mine,
fixed as they had been when, and none knew why, I pined and languished,
and my father said, "He must go to school;" fixed with quiet, watchful
tenderness. Ah, no! his thoughts had not been on the Great Work; he had
been deep in the pages of that less worthy one for which he had yet more
an author's paternal care. I met those eyes and yearned to throw myself
on his heart and tell him all. Tell him what? Ma'am, I no more knew what
to tell him than I know what that black thing was which has so worried
me all this blessed evening!

"Pisistratus," said my father, softly, "I fear you have forgotten the
saffron bag."

"No, indeed, sir," said I, smiling.

"He," resumed my father, "he who wears the saffron bag has more
cheerful, settled spirits than you seem to have, my poor boy."

"My dear Austin, his spirits are very good, I think," said my mother,
anxiously.

My father shook his head; then he took two or three turns about the
room.

"Shall I ring for candles, sir? It is getting dark; you will wish to
read."

"No, Pisistratus, it is you who shall read; and this hour of twilight
best suits the book I am about to open to you."

So saying, he drew a chair between me and my mother and seated himself
gravely, looking down a long time in silence, then turning his eyes to
each of us alternately.

"My dear wife," said he, at length, almost solemnly, "I am going to
speak of myself as I was before I knew you."

Even in the twilight I saw that my mother's countenance changed.

"You have respected my secrets, Katherine, tenderly, honestly. Now the
time is come when I can tell them to you and to our son."

CHAPTER V.

MY FATHER'S FIRST LOVE.

"I lost my mother early; my father--a good man, but who was so indolent
that he rare