le hemmed, attempted to clear his throat, pulled down both sleeves of
his jacket, settled his black handkerchief to his mind, slily got rid of
his quid, and otherwise "cleared ship for action," as he would have been
very apt to describe his own preparations. After all, his heart failed
him, at the pinch; and just as I was pulling up the horse, he said to me,
in a voice so small and delicate, that it sounded odd to one who had heard
the man's thunder, as he hailed yards and tops in gales of wind--

"Miles, my dear boy, I do not half like this business; suppose you get
out, and open the matter to the ladies. There's four of them, you see, and
that's three too many. Go, now, Miles, that's a good fellow, and I'll do
the same for you another time. I can't have _four_ nieces here, you'll own
yourself."

"And while I am telling your story to your niece, your own sister's
daughter, what will you be doing here, pray?"

"Doing?--Why anything, my dear Miles, that can be useful--I say, boy, do
you think she looks anything like me? When you get nearer, if you should
think so, just hold up a hand as a signal, that I may not be taken by
surprise. Yes, yes; you go first, and I'll follow; and as for 'doing,'
why, you know, I can hold this bloody horse."

I laughed, threw the reins to Marble, who seized them with both hands, as
if the beast required holding, while I alighted, and walked to the cluster
of girls, who awaited my movements in surprise and silence. Since that
day; I have seen more of the world than might have been expected in one of
my early career; and often have I had occasion to remark the tendency
there exists to extremes in most things; in manners as well as in every
other matter connected with human feelings. As we become sophisticated,
acting takes the place of nature, and men and women often affect the
greatest indifference in cases in which they feel the liveliest interest.
This is the source of the ultra _sang froid_ of what is termed high
breeding, which would have caused the four young women, who then stood in
the door-yard of the respectable farm-house at which I had alighted, to
assume an air as cold, and as marble-like, at the sudden appearance of
Mrs. Wetmore's chaise, containing two strange faces, as if they had been
long expecting our arrival, and were a little displeased it had not
occurred an hour sooner. Such, however, was not my reception. Though the
four girls were all youthful, blooming, pretty, deli