noted it with surprise.

"I thought there would have been at least one magnet that would have
kept you here," said Phil.

"What magnet, pray?" says Reuben,--somewhat calm again.

"There she goes," says Phil, looking out of the window. And at the
moment Adele tripped by, with the old Doctor walking gravely at her
side.

"Humph!" said Reuben, with a composure that was feigned, "she's too much
of a Puritan for me, Phil: or rather, I'm too little of a Puritan for
her."

Philip looked at his companion keenly. And Reuben, looking back at him
as keenly, said, after a silence of a few moments,--

"I don't think you'll ever marry her either, Phil."

"Marry!" said Phil, with a deep, honest blush,--"who talks of that?"

"You, in your heart, Phil. Do you think I am blind? Do you think I have
not seen that you have loved her, Phil, ever since you knew what it was
to love a woman? Do you think, that, as a boy, you ever imposed upon me
with your talk about that handsome Suke Boody, the tavern-keeper's
daughter? Good Heavens! Phil, I think there were never two men in the
world who talked their thoughts plainly to each other! Do you think I do
not know that you have played the shy lover, because with your big heart
you have yielded to what you counted a prior claim of mine,--because
Adele was one of us at the parsonage?"

"In such affairs," said Phil, with some constraint and not a little
wounded pride, "I don't think men are apt to recognize prior claims."

Reuben replied only by a faint sardonic smile.

"You're a good fellow, Phil, but you won't marry her."

"Of course, then, you know why," said Phil, with something very like a
sneer.

"Certainly," said Reuben. "Because you can't affront the world, because
you are bound by its conventionalities and respectabilities, as I am
not. I spurn them."

"Respectabilities!" said Phil, in amazement. "What does this mean? Just
now she was a Puritan."

"It means, Phil," (and here Reuben reflected a moment or two, puffing
with savage energy,) "it means what I can't wholly explain to you. You
know her French blood; you know all the prejudices against the faith in
which she was reared; you know she has an instinct and will of her own.
In short, Phil, I don't think you'll ever marry her; but if you can, you
may."

"_May!_" said Phil, whose pride was now touched to the quick. "And what
authority have you, pray?"

"The authority of one who has loved her," said Reuben, with a fierce