his
earnestness passed away, and he was the same light-hearted boy.

"Look!" he cried, "that oriole is going to die for joy as he swings
among the cherry blossoms! How green the grass is--what a lovely
landscape!"

And Hoffland gazed rapturously at the green fields, and
blossom-covered trees, and the distant river flowing on in gladness to
the sea, with the kindling eye of a true poet.

"And here is the 'Indian Camp!'" he cried; "grassy, antique, and
romantic!"

"Let us sit down," said Mowbray.

And seating himself upon a moss-covered stone, he leaned his head upon
his hand and pondered.

"Now, I'll lay a wager you are thinking about me!" cried Hoffland;
"perhaps you still revolve in your mind my various delinquencies."

"No," said Mowbray.

"I know I am very bad--very remiss. I ought to have been at college
this morning, but I was not able to come."

"Why, Charles?" said Mowbray, raising his head.

"I was busy."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, reading."

"Ah! not studying?"

"No; unless Shakspeare is study."

"It is a very hard study, but not the sort which I would have you
apply yourself to. What were you reading?"

"'As You Like It,'" said Hoffland; "and I was really charmed with the
fair Rosalind."

"Yes," said Mowbray indifferently; "a wonderful character, such as
Shakspeare only could draw."

"And as good as she was wild--as maidenly as she was pure."

Mowbray shook his head.

"That foray she made into the woods _en cavalier_ was a very doubtful
thing," he said.

"Why, pray?" Hoffland asked, pouting. "I should like to know what
there was wrong in it."

Mowbray smiled, but made no reply.

"Answer me," said Hoffland.

"That is easy. Do you think it wholly proper, perfectly maidenly, for
a woman to assume the garb of our sex?"

"Certainly; why not, sir?"

Mowbray smiled again.

"I fear any argument would only fortify you in your convictions, as
our rebel student says," he replied. "True, Rosalind was the victim of
circumstances, but her example is one of an exceedingly doubtful
nature, or rather it is not at all doubtful."

"Pray, how?"

"Really, Charles, you make me give a reason for every thing. Well
then, I think that it is indelicate in women to leave their proper
sphere and descend to the level of men, and this any woman must do in
assuming the masculine garb. If I am not mistaken, the common law
bears me out, and inflicts a penalty upon such deviations from
established usage. None