ne move, your sending the children away this afternoon, so that you
could have Miss Featherstone all to yourself. Did you come to the
point?"

"No, but I will one of these days: I am preparing her mind," he added
mischievously.

As time went on a vague uneasiness seized the young governess. She
imagined Mrs. Pinckney was growing cool in her manner toward her:
certainly, Doctor Harris, who was constantly at the house, was becoming
importunate in his attentions. Once she looked up suddenly at as
prosaic a place as the dinner-table. Colonel Pinckney was gazing both
ardently and admiringly upon her. "Certainly I must be losing my senses
to imagine these men in love with me: it's preposterous."

Mr. Brown put the matter at rest, as far as he was concerned, for one
day, as she returned from a walk, he accosted her on the veranda, and
with a series of the most violent grimaces and gesticulations, his eyes
flashing, his face working in every possible direction, he told her
that he was _desole_: his life depended upon her. He was so odd and
absurd in his avowal that she burst out laughing: then, as she beheld
an indignant, inquiring expression on his honest red countenance, she
grew frightened, sank on a seat and wept hysterically. This encouraged
him: he sat down beside her and exclaimed, "Dear mees"--and he peered
at her blandly--"your life is empty: so is mine. Let it be for me--oh,
so beautiful!"--and he spread out his little fat hands with
rapture--"to comfort and console one heavenly existence, _ensemble."_
He placed a hand on each stout knee and gazed benignly down upon her.

She hung her head as sheepishly as if she returned the little
foreigner's affection--afraid of wounding him, she was speechless--when
at this unlucky moment Colonel Pinckney, coming suddenly round the
house, walked up the steps. She saw him glance at her--Mr. Brown's back
was toward him--and a smile he evidently couldn't restrain stole over
his face.

"Oh, Mr. Brown, I'm so sorry!" she found courage at length to say. "You
are very kind--you've always been kind to me from the moment I entered
the house--but indeed you must never speak on this subject again." She
shook hands with him in her embarrassment, apparently as a proof of
friendship, then ran into the house.

"Virginia, what do you think has happened to me?" cried Colonel
Pinckney, bursting into his sister-in-law's room, which he seldom
invaded. "Yesterday, as I came up the steps, I surp