ing up, "you have been making a long visit
upstairs. You found Mrs. Keats very agreeable, or you were so yourself."

"Is there anything wrong hereabouts?" said I, touching my forehead with
my finger.

"Nothing whatever."

"No fancies, no delusions about certain people?"

"None whatever."

"None of the family suspected of anything odd or eccentric?"

"Not that I have ever heard of. Why do you ask?"

"Well, it was a mere fancy, perhaps, on my part; but her manner to-day
struck me as occasionally strange,--almost flighty."

"And on what subject?"

"I am scarcely at liberty to say that; in fact, I am not at all free to
divulge it," said I, mysteriously, and somewhat gratified to remark that
I had excited a most intense curiosity on her part to learn the subject
of our interview.

"Oh, pray do not make any imprudent revelations to me," said she,
pettishly; "which, apart from the indiscretion, would have the singular
demerit of affording me not the slightest pleasure. I am not afflicted
with the malady of curiosity."

"What a blessing to you! Now, I am the most inquisitive of mankind. I
feel that if I were a clerk in a bank, I 'd spend the day prying into
every one's account, and learning the exact state of his balance-sheet.
If I were employed in the post-office, no terror of the law could
restrain me from reading the letters. Tell me that any one has a secret
in his heart, and I feel I could cut him open to get at it!"

"I don't think you are giving a flattering picture of yourself in all
this," said she, peevishly.

"I am aware of that, Miss Herbert; but I am also one of those who do not
trade upon qualities they have no pretension to."

She flushed a deep crimson at this, and after a moment said,--

"Has it not occurred to you, sir, that people who seldom meet except to
exchange ungracious remarks would show more judgment by avoiding each
other's society?"

Oh, how my heart thrilled at this pettish speech! In Hans Gruter's
"Courtship," he says, "I knew she loved me, for we never met without
a quarrel." "I have thought of that, too, Miss Herbert," said I, "but
there are outward observances to be kept up, conventionalities to be
respected."

"None of which, however, require that you should come out and sit here
while I am at my work," said she, with suppressed passion.

"I came out here to search for the newspaper," said I, taking it up, and
stretching myself on the grassy sward to read at leisure.