you go to your room immediately, sir? If not, may I offer you a
cigar--provided the young gentlemen will permit it?"

So, picking his words with painful deliberation, and pointing his
reference to "the young gentlemen" with one sardonic side-look at them,
Mr. John Jago performed the duties of hospitality on his side. I
excused myself from accepting the cigar. With studied politeness, the
man of the glittering brown eyes wished me a goodnight's rest, and left
the room.

Ambrose and Silas both approached me hospitably, with their open
cigar-cases in their hands.

"You were quite right to say 'No,'" Ambrose began. "Never smoke with
John Jago. His cigars will poison you."

"And never believe a word John Jago says to you," added Silas. "He is
the greatest liar in America, let the other be whom he may."

Naomi shook her forefinger reproachfully at them, as if the two sturdy
young farmers had been two children.

"What will Mr. Lefrank think," she said, "if you talk in that way of a
person whom your father respects and trusts? Go and smoke. I am ashamed
of both of you."

Silas slunk away without a word of protest. Ambrose stood his ground,
evidently bent on making his peace with Naomi before he left her.

Seeing that I was in the way, I walked aside toward a glass door at the
lower end of the room. The door opened on the trim little farm-garden,
bathed at that moment in lovely moonlight. I stepped out to enjoy the
scene, and found my way to a seat under an elm-tree. The grand repose
of nature had never looked so unutterably solemn and beautiful as it
now appeared, after what I had seen and heard inside the house. I
understood, or thought I understood, the sad despair of humanity which
led men into monasteries in the old times. The misanthropical side of
my nature (where is the sick man who is not conscious of that side of
him?) was fast getting the upper hand of me when I felt a light touch
laid on my shoulder, and found myself reconciled to my species once
more by Naomi Colebrook.

CHAPTER III. THE MOONLIGHT MEETING.

"I WANT to speak to you," Naomi began "You don't think ill of me for
following you out here? We are not accustomed to stand much on ceremony
in America."

"You are quite right in America. Pray sit down."

She seated herself by my side, looking at me frankly and fearlessly by
the light of the moon.

"You are related to the family here," she resumed, "and I am related
too. I guess I may say to yo