other matters. I cling to the
hypothesis that she is amiable. She is, moreover, intelligent; she is
probably quite reserved; and she is possibly very proud. She is, in
short, a woman of character. There you are, Miss Blunt, at full
length,--emphatically the portrait of a lady. After tea, she gave us
some music in the parlor. I confess that I was more taken with the
picture of the dusky little room, lighted by the single candle on the
piano, and by the _effect_ of Miss Blunt's performance, than with its
meaning. She appears to possess a very brilliant touch.

* * * * *

_June 18th._--I have now been here almost a week. I occupy two very
pleasant rooms. My painting-room is a vast and rather bare apartment,
with a very good southern light. I have decked it out with a few old
prints and sketches, and have already grown very fond of it. When I had
disposed my artistic odds and ends in as picturesque a fashion as
possible, I called in my hosts. The Captain looked about silently for
some moments, and then inquired hopefully if I had ever tried my hand at
a ship. On learning that I had not yet got to ships, he relapsed into a
deferential silence. His daughter smiled and questioned very graciously,
and called everything beautiful and delightful; which rather
disappointed me, as I had taken her to be a woman of some originality.
She is rather a puzzle;--or is she, indeed, a very commonplace person,
and the fault in me, who am forever taking women to mean a great deal
more than their Maker intended? Regarding Miss Blunt I have collected a
few facts. She is not twenty-four, but twenty-seven years old. She has
taught music ever since she was twenty, in a large boarding-school just
out of the town, where she originally got her education. Her salary in
this establishment, which is, I believe, a tolerably flourishing one,
and the proceeds of a few additional lessons, constitute the chief
revenues of the household. But Blunt fortunately owns his house, and his
needs and habits are of the simplest kind. What does he or his daughter
know of the great worldly theory of necessities, the great worldly scale
of pleasures? Miss Blunt's only luxuries are a subscription to the
circulating library, and an occasional walk on the beach, which, like
one of Miss Bronte's heroines, she paces in company with an old
Newfoundland dog. I am afraid she is sadly ignorant. She reads nothing
but novels. I am bound to believe,