ed, ever since your heart gave up its lock and key?"

"Yes indeed," said the Squire earnestly,--"I am so bound up in slavery
that I have even forgotten the wish to be free! All my wife's things
are proper!"

"O hush!" his wife said laughing, but with a little quick bright
witness in her eyes, that was pretty to see. Dr. Harrison smiled.

"You see, Miss Derrick!" he said with a little bow to her,--"there is
witness on all sides;--and now I will go on with my _not impossible_
she."--

He got through several verses, not without several interruptions, till
he came to the exquisite words following;--

"'I wish her beauty,
That owes not all his duty
To gaudy tire or glistring shoetye.

'Something more than
Taffeta or tissue can,
Or rampant feather, or rich fan.

'More than the spoil
Of shop, or silk-worm's toil,
Or a bought blush, or a set smile.'"

While Miss Essie exclaimed, Miss Harrison stole a look at Faith; who
was looking up at the doctor, listening, with a very simple face of
amusement. Her thoughts were indeed better ballasted than to sway to
such a breeze if she had felt it. But the real extreme beauty of the
image and of the delineation was what she felt; she made no application
of them. The doctor came to this verse.

"'A well-tamed heart,
For whose more noble smart
Love may be long choosing a dart.'--

What does that mean, Linden?--isn't that an error in the description?"

"Poetical license," said Mr. Linden smiling. "Psyche will give you
trouble enough, wings and all,--there is no fear you will find her
'tamed'."

"How is Campaspe in that respect?"

"She has never given me much trouble yet," said Mr. Linden.

"What I object to is the 'long choosing'," said the doctor. "Miss de
Staff--do you think a good heart should be very hard to win?"

"Certainly!--the harder the better," replied the lady. "That's the only
way to bring down your pride. The harder she is, the more likely you
are to think she's a diamond."

"Mrs. Stoutenburgh!"--

"What has been the texture of yours all these years, doctor?"

"He thinks that when he has dined the rest of the world should follow
suit--like the Khan of Tartary," said Mrs. Somers.

"Miss Derrick!" said the doctor--"I hope for some gentleness from you.
Do you think such a heart as we have been talking of, should be very
difficult to move?"

Faith's blush was exquisite. Real speech was hard to command. She knew
a