m
over Pickwick, with a sedative cigar, a gentle knock at the door told of
Daniel. I called "Come in!" and, entering with a slow dejected air,
he sat down by my fire. For ten minutes he remained silent, though
occasionally looking up as if about to speak, then dropping his head
again to ponder on the coals. Finally I laid down Dickens, and spoke
myself.

"You don't seem well to-night, Daniel?"

"I don't feel very well, uncle."

"What's the matter, my boy?"

"Oh--ah--I don't know. That is, I wish I knew how to tell you."

I studied him for a few moments with kindly curiosity, then answered:
"Perhaps I can save you the trouble by cross-examining it out of you.
Let's try the method of elimination. I know that you are not harassed by
any economical considerations, for you've all the money you want; and I
know that ambition doesn't trouble you, for your tastes are scholarly.
This narrows down the investigation of your symptoms--listlessness,
general dejection, and all--to three causes: Dyspepsia, religious
conflicts, love. Now is your digestion awry?"

"No, sir, good as usual. I'm not melancholy on religion and--"

"You don't tell me you're in love?"

"Well--yes--I suppose that's about it, Uncle Teddy."

I took a long breath to recover from my astonishment at this
unimaginable revelation, then said:

"Is your feeling returned?"

"I really don't know, uncle. I don't believe it is. I don't see how it
can be. I never did anything to make her love me. What is there in me to
love! I've borne enough for her--that is, nothing that could do her any
good--though I've endured on her account, I may say, anguish. So, look
at it any way you please, I neither am, do, nor suffer anything that can
get a woman's love."

"Oh, you man of learning! Even in love you tote your grammar along
with you, and arrange a divine passion under the active, passive, and
neuter!"

Daniel smiled faintly.

"You've no idea, Uncle Teddy, that you are twitting on facts; but you
hit the truth there; indeed you do. If she were a Greek or Latin woman
I could talk Anacreon or Horace to her. If women only understood the
philosophy of the flowers as well as they do the poetry--"

"Thank God they don't, Daniel!" sighed out I devoutly.

"Never mind--in that case I could entrance her for hours, talking about
the grounds of difference between Linnaeus and Jussieu. Women like
the star business, they say--and I could tell her where all the
constellation