I was fluttering the leaves of his lexicon, vainly investigating a point that he chose to consider settled, and the more I searched the more he sang, till at last, thoroughly roused, and rather indignant, I gave him a good scolding, and asked him what he could be thinking of to trifle away his time in that way? He turned his clear eyes upon me, ceased to sing, and gradually arrived at the conclusion that I really was giving him a lecture, that I meant what I said, and that I really did regard the reading, not as play, but as work. So he withdrew his idle hand from his waistcoat pocket, took the book gravely from me, and went on construing for full ten minutes with exemplary care and a kind of urgency and energy that surprised me. At the end of that time I heard footsteps, and saw a little smile begin to tremble over the lips of my companion, but he did not pause till his brother came up and stopped before us; then he clapped to the book, and exclaimed with a burst of laughter, "She says I ought to be ashamed of myself." "So you ought!" I answered, audaciously, but obliged to laugh too. 'She says I am not in earnest about anything, and that I shall certainly go to the dogs if I don't mend my ways." "I uttered no such words, but I said what implied as much; and so I think." When I saw Mr. Brandon's amused face, I felt suddenly ashamed of the warmth I had displayed, and the unguarded things I had said to my two days' acquaintance. He put aside the pear boughs, came close, and sat down on a treestump at our feet, folding his arms and looking up at us. "It appears that you and Miss Graham have been quarrelling? he remarked. "Not at all!" I replied; "but I was reading with your brother, and he would not give his attention to what he was about, so—" hesitated. "So you scolded him?" I "Yes," said Valentine, "she was in such a passion. She is quite flushed now, as you can see." St. George glanced at my face. 66 66 'Well, Oubit," he said, "I hope you appreciate the compliment." Compliment! do you think I like to be scolded?" "Don't you like that a lady should take enough interest in you to be vexed when you behave like a child?" "The compliment was of my paying," said Valentine, with an easy smile; "I was naturally occupied with her and not with the lexicon, and she got quite indignant-roused-her eyes flashed, and she said such things! I declare she made my cheeks tingle. Miss Graham?” "Yes." "I declare I thought for a moment you were going to cry." Oh! what an accusation of childishness, and I had meant to be so old in all my ways! I looked up, and Mr. Brandon met my eyes with a sweet and tender smile, such as one bestows sometimes on a dear child, and I thought how hard it was that I could neither look like a grown-up woman nor behave like one. "I have often told you," he said to his brother, "that your want of earnestness is ruinous-deplorable! Now you have come in contact with an earnest nature which cannot endure trifling where grave interests are concerned, see how you have shocked it!" "Well, I shall work harder next time," said Valentine, with easy good-nature, "but it's not my way to be excited about things. .I naturally am careless, I suppose." "But you should strive against that defect, not state it complacently as a fact that you have nothing to do with." "Well," he answered, "if Miss Graham would take me in hand, perhaps I could catch a little energy from her; I declare I felt quite elevated when she fired up; I experienced a kind of noble rage against myself and everything. If she could put me into a fury and reproach me every day, I could do anything." "Probably Miss Graham has something better to do than to attend to your Greek." I was glad of this proposal, and said I should like very much to read with him if he really meant to work, and would promise that there should be no more such ridiculous scenes as we had just enacted. "What! you really will read with me?" he exclaimed. "Yes, of course; I scarcely ever have the least chance of being of use; I cannot think of throwing this little one away. It is so very unsatisfactory to live entirely for oneself." "There! you got that notion out of a book,-that is the first thing I have heard you say that did not sound natural and real. 'My dear lord, clear your mind of cant' (The Great Samuel.)" His brother tried to snub him. "How do you know what is natural to a conscientious person? That feeling that notion does come out of a book, but not the sort of book you mean." "I meant one of those books that Liz and Lou are so fond of crying over, where the people are so impossibly good and refined and conscientious, and yet so invariably miserable." "Well, I hate those books too," he answered-" cold, low-spirited things." Liz and Lou did not look as if their reading had depressed them, and I remarked that I thought so. "You will change your mind when the next Mudie box comes; won't she, St. George?" "Yes, and people unconsciously imitate what they admire, particu larly when set before them in the guise of a superb young heroine, with dark eyes and perfect features that seldom relax into a smile, stern duty being all that remains to her,-love and hope and ease being tragically extinguished." "Or of a fair girl, all feeling," said the Oubit, sighing; "a creature so horribly conscientious that she nearly cries if a fellow does but read a line out of some heathen Greek without bending his whole soul to the task." "I am not expected to recognise anyone that I know in the disguise of a girl all feeling!" "I said a fair girl." "And I am not fair and not all feeling. I was cross when you were so provoking, that was all." "You are not fair!" "No, I am not, and I do not say that to provoke a denial. I do not much care about appearances—at least "That sentence began in very promising manner," said Mr. Brandon; "but if you think you are not fair, how odd that you should not care?" "You think, then, that if you were a woman you should care?" "I am sure of it." "Perhaps you are not thinking of what I meant." "I was thinking of that delicacy, that attractiveness and grace-in short, of that beauty which distinguishes your sex." "But I was only thinking of that beauty which distinguishes one of my sex over others." "And I understand you to say that you do not care about it?" "I do not think it would suit me at all. It would want taking care of, like any other gift of God; I should have to change my whole manner and conduct on purpose to harmonise with it. Yes, I think I am glad it is not mine." "Your present style and manner, then, would not suit a beautiful young woman? "No, because it always shows that I am very desirous to please." “Ah!” said Valentine, "and that you think, if you were beautiful, would turn poor fellows' heads." "You talk," said Mr. Brandon to me, "as if beauty was a fact and not an opinion." "It does not much matter which it is, if almost all agree as to its absence or presence." 66 Very true," he answered, and laughed as if a good deal amused. "I say, St. George," said Valentine, "I believe when Miss Graham made that incautious speech, she only meant that she didn't care what you and I thought of her face." There was a pause. "She cannot deny it. I'll give her while I count twelve to do it in." I looked up at the tall boy and then down at Miss Dorinda's lover, and it seemed to me that there was no need to deny it. To have beauty and captivate Valentine would be very awkward, for I should not be captivated in my turn: to have it and be seen by Dorinda would perhaps make her tremble, and would certainly make her try to prevent my obtaining a friend. "There!" said Valentine, "the numbers are counted out; 'She lives and makes no sign.'" "You need not think my indifference is magnanimous, it is only natural." Valentine laughed. "I know you consider me nothing but a boy, and I do not care, but really I think you are ten times betterlooking than many-indeed, than most girls-far better-looking than Fanny Wilson, or Jane either." A bell had been tinkling for some time, and I asked what it was, apon which they both rose, and saying that it was the lunch-bell, proposed that we should return to the house. (To be continued.) JOHN MARDON, MARINER: HIS STRANGE ADVENTURES IN EL DORADO.* BY THE AUTHOR OF "ST. ABE." IN TWO PARTS. PART I. JOHN MARDON, IN HIS LAST SICKNESS, BEGINNETH HIS STRANGE WHITE Marie with the drooping eyes! Round me and in me Hell doth rise, With breath to burne and teeth to teare! White Marie with the drooping eyes, Keep greene one spot beneath the Skies, And waft my Soul before it flies, One little moment, there! Say, who is he, on bended knee Nor heark to what he saith. Hold my hand, Woman, hold my hand! Thou meanest well, I wis! *South America, 16—. |