of nights, or
talked with each other in the great bed where, according to the fashion
of the day, they lay together, how should Harry know that he had so
great a share in their thoughts, jokes, conversation? Three days after
his arrival, his new and hospitable friends were walking with him in my
Lord Wrotham's fine park, where they were free to wander; and here, on a
piece of water, they came to some swans, which the young ladies were
in the habit of feeding with bread. As the birds approached the young
women, Hetty said, with a queer look at her mother and sister, and
then a glance at her father, who stood by, honest, happy, in a red
waistcoat,--Hetty said: "Mamma's swans are something like these, papa."

"What swans, my dear?" says mamma.

"Something like, but not quite. They have shorter necks than these, and
are, scores of them, on our common," continues Miss Hetty. "I saw Betty
plucking one in the kitchen this morning. We shall have it for dinner,
with apple-sauce and----"

"Don't be a little goose!" says Miss Theo.

"And sage and onions. Do you love swan, Mr. Warrington?"

"I shot three last winter on our river," said the Virginian gentleman.
"Ours are not such white birds as these--they eat very well, though."
The simple youth had not the slightest idea that he himself was an
allegory at that very time, and that Miss Hetty was narrating a fable
regarding him. In some exceedingly recondite Latin work I have read
that, long before Virginia was discovered, other folks were equally dull
of comprehension.

So it was a premature sentiment on the part of Miss Theo--that little
tender flutter of the bosom which we have acknowledged she felt on first
beholding the Virginian, so handsome, pale, and bleeding. This was not
the great passion which she knew her heart could feel. Like the birds,
it had wakened and begun to sing at a false dawn. Hop back to thy perch,
and cover thy head with thy wing, thou tremulous little fluttering
creature! It is not yet light, and roosting is as yet better than
singing. Anon will come morning, and the whole sky will redden, and you
shall soar up into it and salute the sun with your music.

One little phrase, some three-and-thirty lines back, perhaps the fair
and suspicious reader has remarked: "Three days after his arrival, Harry
was walking with," etc. etc. If he could walk--which it appeared he
could do perfectly well--what business had he to be walking with anybody
but Lady Maria