than a trio
to the gracious Flucker.

Christie moved about the room, doing little household matters; Gatty's
eye followed her.

Her beauty lost nothing in this small apartment; she was here, like
a brilliant in some quaint, rough setting, which all earth's jewelers
should despise, and all its poets admire, and it should show off the
stone and not itself.

Her beauty filled the room, and almost made the spectators ill.

Gatty asked himself whether he could really have been such a fool as to
think of giving up so peerless a creature.

Suddenly an idea occurred to him, a bright one, and not inconsistent
with a true artist's character--he would decline to act in so doubtful a
case. He would float passively down the tide of events--he would neither
desert her, nor disobey his mother; he would take everything as it came,
and to begin, as he was there, he would for the present say nothing but
what he felt, and what he felt was that he loved her.

He told her so accordingly.

She replied, concealing her satisfaction, "that, if he liked her, he
would not have refused to eat when she asked him."

But our hero's appetite had returned with his change of purpose, and he
instantly volunteered to give the required proof of affection.

Accordingly two pound of steaks fell before him. Poor boy, he had hardly
eaten a genuine meal for a week past.

Christie sat opposite him, and every time he looked off his plate he saw
her rich blue eyes dwelling on him.

Everything contributed to warm his heart, he yielded to the spell, he
became contented, happy, gay.

Flucker ginger-cordialed him, his sister bewitched him.

She related the day's events in a merry mood.

Mr. Gatty burst forth into singing.

He sung two light and somber trifles, such as in the present day are
deemed generally encouraging to spirits, and particularly in accordance
with the sentiment of supper--they were about Death and Ivy Green.

The dog's voice was not very powerful, but sweet and round as honey
dropping from the comb.

His two hearers were entranced, for the creature sang with an
inspiration good singers dare not indulge.

He concluded by informing Christie that the ivy was symbolical of her,
and the oak prefigured Charles Gatty, Esq.

He might have inverted the simile with more truth.

In short, he never said a word to Christie about parting with her,
but several about being buried in the same grave with her, sixty years
hence, for which the