eautiful features, never more striking than in that moment of joyful
meeting.

"How well you are looking, Lizzy!" said he, with a thick utterance.

"And you too, dear papa," said she, caressingly. "This quiet rural life
seems to have agreed wonderfully with you. I declare you look five years
younger for it, does he not, Mr. Beecher?"

"Ah, Beecher, how are you?" cried Davis, warmly shaking the other's
hand. "This _is_ jolly, to be all together again," said he, as, drawing
his daughter's arm within his own, and taking Beecher on the other side,
he told the postilions to move forward, while they would find their way
on foot.

"How did you ever hit upon this spot?" asked Beecher; "we could n't find
it on the map."

"I came through here some four-and-twenty years ago, and I never forget
a place nor a countenance. I thought at the time it might suit me, some
one day or other, to remember, and you see I was right. You are grown
fatter, Lizzy; at least I fancy so. But come, tell me about your life at
Aix,--was it pleasant? was the place gay?"

"It was charming, papa!" cried she, in ecstasy; "had you only been
with us, I could not have come away. Such delightful rides and drives,
beautiful environs, and then the Cursaal of an evening, with all its
odd people,--not that my guardian, here, fancied so much my laughing at
them."

"Well, you did n't place much restraint upon yourself, I must say."

"I was reserved even to prudery; I was the caricature of Anglo-Saxon
propriety," said she, with affected austerity.

"And what did they think of you, eh?" asked Davis trying to subdue the
pride that would, in spite of him, twinkle in his eye.

"I was the belle of the season. I assure you it is perfectly true!"

"Come, come, Lizzy--"

"Well, ask Mr. Beecher. Be honest now, and confess frankly, were you
not sulky at driving out with me the way the people stared? Didn't you
complain that you never expected to come home from the play without a
duel or something of the kind on your hands? Did you not induce me
to ruin my toilette just to escape what you so delicately called 'our
notoriety'? Oh, wretched man! what triumphs did I not relinquish out of
compliance to your taste for obscurity!"

"By Jove! we divided public attention with Ferouk Khan and his wives. I
don't see that my taste for obscurity obtained any brilliant success."

"I never heard of such black ingratitude!" cried she, in mock
indignation. "I assure you, pa, I