ce; for Miss Fairbairn had begun to speak of Italian literature, a
subject she had been getting up lately for certain good reasons of her
own. She dared to talk about Dante, and John was almost at once keenly
aware that all this learning was sham--it was the outcome of no real
taste; and he felt like a fool while one of the ladies did the wooing
and the other, as he thought, amused herself with watching it. He was
accustomed to be wooed, and to be watched, but he had been trying for
some time to bring his mind to like the present wooer. While away from
her he fancied that he had begun to succeed, and now he knew well that
this sort of talk would drive him wild in a week. It represented nothing
real. No; the thing would not do. She was a good woman; she would have
ruled his house well; she would have been just to his children; and if
he had established her in all comfort and elegance over his family, he
might have left her, and attended to those prospective Parliamentary
duties as long as he liked, without annoying her. She was a lady too,
and her mother, old Lady Fairbairn, was a pleasant and unexceptionable
woman. But she was making herself ridiculous now. No; it would not do.

Giving her up then and there, he suddenly started from his seat as if he
felt relieved, and drawing himself to his full height, looked down on
the two ladies, one of whom, lifting her golden head, continued the
wooing with her eyes, while the other said carelessly and with a
dispassionate air--

"Well, I cannot think how you or John or any one can like that
bitter-hearted, odious, cruel Dante."

"Emily," exclaimed Miss Fairbairn, "how can you be so absurd, dear?"

"I wonder they did not tear him into little bits," continued Emily
audaciously, "instead of merely banishing him, which was all they
did--wasn't it, John?"

"I cannot imagine what you mean," exclaimed Miss Fairbairn, while John
laughed, and felt that at least here was something real and natural.

"You cannot? That's because you don't consider, then, what we should
feel if somebody now were to write a grand poem about our fathers,
mothers, aunts, uncles, and dear friends deceased, setting forth how he
had seen them all in the nether regions; how he had received their
confidences, and how penitent most of them were. Persecuted, indeed! and
misunderstood! I consider that his was the deadliest revenge any man
ever took upon his enemies."

Miss Fairbairn's brow, on hearing this, cont