I have myself heard hints of the
circumstance, but would much rather hear Sparks's own version of it."

"Another love story," said the doctor, with a grin, "I'll be bound."

"Shot off in a duel?" said I, inquiringly. "Close work, too."

"No such thing," replied Power; "but Sparks will enlighten you. It is,
without exception, the most touching and beautiful thing I ever heard. As a
simple story, it beats the 'Vicar of Wakefield' to sticks."

"You don't say so?" said poor Sparks, blushing.

"Ay, that I do; and maintain it, too. I'd rather be the hero of that little
adventure, and be able to recount it as you do,--for, mark me, that's no
small part of the effect,--than I'd be full colonel of the regiment. Well,
I am sure I always thought it affecting. But, somehow, my dear friend, you
don't know your powers; you have that within you would make the fortune of
half the periodicals going. Ask Monsoon or O'Malley there if I did not say
so at breakfast, when you were grilling the old hen,--which, by-the-bye,
let me remark, was not one of your _chefs-d'oeuvre_."

"A tougher beastie I never put a tooth in."

"But the story, the story," said I.

"Yes," said Power, with a tone of command, "the story, Sparks."

"Well, if you really think it worth telling, as I have always felt it a
very remarkable incident, here goes."

CHAPTER XXXII

MR. SPARKS'S STORY.

"I sat at breakfast one beautiful morning at the Goat Inn at Barmouth,
looking out of a window upon the lovely vale of Barmouth, with its tall
trees and brown trout-stream struggling through the woods, then turning
to take a view of the calm sea, that, speckled over with white-sailed
fishing-boats, stretched away in the distance. The eggs were fresh; the
trout newly caught; the cream delicious. Before me lay the 'Plwdwddlwn
Advertiser,' which, among the fashionable arrivals at the seaside, set
forth Mr. Sparks, nephew of Sir Toby Sparks, of Manchester,--a paragraph,
by the way, I always inserted. The English are naturally an aristocratic
people, and set a due value upon a title."

"A very just observation," remarked Power, seriously, while Sparks
continued.

"However, as far as any result from the announcement, I might as well have
spared myself the trouble, for not a single person called. Not one solitary
invitation to dinner, not a picnic, not a breakfast, no, nor even a
tea-party, was heard of. Barmouth, at the time I speak of, was just in that
transitio