ld do him the honour
to accept the pencil as an offering from himself.

"You an't surely in earnest!" exclaimed Opportunity, flushing up with
surprise and pleasure. "Why, you told me the price was four dollars; and
even that seems to me desperate little!"

"Dat ist de price to anudder," said the gallant trinket-dealer; "but dat
ist not de price to you, Miss Opportunity. Ve shall trafel togedder; ant
vhen ve gets to your coontry, you vill dell me de best houses vhere I
might go mit my vatches ant drinkets."

"That I will; and get you in at the Nest House, in the bargain," cried
Opportunity, pocketing the pencil without further parley.

In the mean time my uncle selected a very neat seal, the handsomest he
had, being of pure metal, and having a real topaz in it, and offered it
to Mary Warren, with his best bow. I watched the clergyman's daughter
with anxiety, as I witnessed the progress of this _galanterie_, doubting
and hoping at each change of the ingenuous and beautiful countenance of
her to whom the offering was made. Mary coloured, smiled, seemed
embarrassed, and, as I feared, for a single moment doubting; but I must
have been mistaken, as she drew back, and, in the sweetest manner
possible, declined to accept the present. I saw that Opportunity's
having just adopted a different course added very much to her
embarrassment, as otherwise she might have said something to lessen the
seeming ungraciousness of the refusal. Luckily for herself, however, she
had a gentleman to deal with, instead of one in the station that my
uncle Ro had voluntarily assumed. When this offering was made, the
pretended pedlar was ignorant altogether of the true characters of the
clergyman and his daughter, not even knowing that he saw the rector of
St. Andrew's, Ravensnest. But the manner of Mary at once disabused him
of an error into which he had fallen through her association with
Opportunity, and he now drew back himself with perfect tact, bowing and
apologizing in a way that I thought must certainly betray his disguise.
It did not, however; for Mr. Warren, with a smile that denoted equally
satisfaction at his daughter's conduct, and a grateful sense of the
other's intended liberality, but with a simplicity that was of proof,
turned to me and begged a tune on the flute which I had drawn from my
pocket and was holding in my hand, as expecting some such invitation.

If I have any accomplishment, it is connected with music; and
particular