Loe raamatut: «Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2», lehekülg 6

CHAPTER VII. A DISCURSIVE CONVERSATION

Davis was surprised, and something more, as he entered the breakfast-room the next morning to find the Rev. Paul Classon already seated at the table, calmly arranging certain little parallelograms of bread-and-butter and sardines. No signs of discomfiture or shame showed themselves in that calmly benevolent countenance. Indeed, as he arose and extended his hand there was an air of bland protection in the gesture perfectly soothing.

“You came back in a pretty state last night,” said Davis, roughly.

“Overtaken, Kit, – overtaken. It was a piece of good news rather than the grape juice did the mischief. As the poet says, —

 
“‘Good tidings flowed upon his heart
Like a sea o’er a barren shore,
And the pleasant waves refreshed the spot
So parched and bleak before.’
 

“The fact is, Kit, you brought me luck. Just as I reached the Post-Office, I saw a letter addressed to the Rev. Paul Classon, announcing that I had been accepted as Chaplain to the great Hydropathic Institution at Como! and, to commemorate the event, I celebrated in wine the triumphs of water! You got the letters all safely?”

“Little thanks to you if I did; nor am I yet certain how many may have dropped out on the road.”

“Stay, – I have a memorandum here,” said Paul, opening his little note-book. “Four, with London post-marks, to Captain Christopher; two from Brussels for the same; a large packet for the Hon. Annesley Beecher. That’s the whole list.”

“I got these!” said Grog, gruffly; “but why, might I ask, could you not have kept sober till you got back here?”

“He who dashes his enthusiasm with caution, waters the liquor of life. How do we soar above the common ills of existence save by yielding to those glorious impulses of the heart, which say, ‘Be happy!’”

“Keep the sermon for the cripples at the water-cure,” said Davis, savagely. “When are you to be there?”

“By the end of the month. I mentioned the time myself. It would be as soon, I thought, as I could manage to have my divinity library out from England.”

The sly drollery of his eye, as he spoke, almost extorted a half-smile from Davis.

“Let me see,” muttered Grog, as he arose and lighted his cigar, “we are, to-day, the 21st, I believe. No, you can’t be there so early. I shall need you somewhere about the first week in October; it might chance to be earlier. You mustn’t remain here, however, in the interval. You’ll have to find some place in the neighborhood, about fifteen or twenty miles off.”

“There’s Höchst, on the Lahn, a pleasant spot, eighteen miles from this.”

“Höchst be it; but, mark me, no more of last night’s doings.”

“I pledge my word,” said Paul, solemnly. “Need I say, it is as good as my bond?”

“About the same, I suspect; but I ‘ll give you mine too,” said Davis, with a fierce energy. “If by any low dissipation or indiscretion of yours you thwart the plans I am engaged in, I ‘ll leave you to starve out the rest of your life here.”

“‘So swear we all as liegemen true, So swear to live and die!’” cried out Paul, with a most theatrical air in voice and gesture.

“You know a little of everything, I fancy,” said Davis, in a more good-humored tone. “What do you know of law?”

“Of law?” said Paul, as he helped himself to a dish of smoking cutlets, – “if it be the law of debtor and creditor, false arrest, forcible possession, battery, or fraudulent bankruptcy, I am indifferently well skilled. Nor am I ignorant in divorce cases, separate maintenance, and right of guardianship. Equity, I should say, is my weak point.”

“I believe you,” said Davis, with a grin, for he but imperfectly understood the speech. “But it is of another kind of law I ‘m speaking. What do you know about disputed title to a peerage? Have you any experience in such cases?”

“Yes; I have ransacked registries, rummaged out gravestones in my time. I very nearly burned my fingers, too, with a baptismal certificate that turned out to be – what shall I call it? – unauthentic!”

“You forged it!” said Grog, gruffly.

“They disputed its correctness, and, possibly, with some grounds for their opinion. Indeed,” added he, carelessly, “it was the first thing of the kind I had ever done, and it was slovenly – slovenly.”

“It would have been transportation!” said Davis, gravely.

“With hard labor,” added Classon, sipping his tea.

“At all events, you understand something of these sort of cases?”

“Yes; I have been concerned, one way or another, with five. They are interesting when you take to them; there are so many, so to say, surprises; always something turning up you never looked for, – somebody’s father that never had a child, somebody’s mother that never was married. Then people die, – say a hundred and fifty years ago, – and no proof of the death can be made out; or you build wonderfully upon an act of Parliament, and only find out at the last hour that it has been repealed. These traits give a great deal of excitement to the suit. I used to enjoy them much when I was younger.” And Mr. Classon sighed as if he had been calling up memories of cricket-matches, steeple-chases, or the polka, – pleasures that advancing years had rudely robbed him of.

Davis sat deep in thought for some time. Either he had not fully made up his mind to open an unreserved confidence with his reverend friend, or which is perhaps as likely, he was not in possession of such knowledge as might enable him to state his case.

“These suits, or actions, or whatever you call them,” said he, at length, “always drag on for years, – don’t they?”

“Of course they do; the lawyers take care of that. There are trials at bar, commissions, special examinations before the Masters, arguments before the peers, appeals against decisions; in fact, it is a question of the purse of the litigants. Like everything else, however, in this world, they ‘ve got economy-struck. I remember the time – it was the Bancroft case – they gave me five guineas a day and travelling expenses to go out to Ravenna and take the deposition of an old Marchess, half-sister of the Dowager, and now, I suppose, they ‘d say the service was well paid with one half. Indeed, I may say I had as good as accepted a sort of engagement to go out to the Crimea and examine a young fellow whom they fancy has a claim to a peerage, and for a mere trifle, – fifteen shillings a day and expenses. But they had got my passport stopped here, and I could n’t get away.”

“What was the name of the claimant?”

“Here it is,” said he, opening his note-book. “Charles Conway, formerly in the 11th Hussars, supposed to be serving as orderly on the staff of General La Marmora. I have a long letter of instructions Froode forwarded me, and I suspect it is a strong case got up to intimidate.”

“What is the peerage sought for?” asked Davis, with an assumed indifference.

“I can tell you in five minutes if you have any curiosity on the subject,” said Paul, rising. “The papers are all in my writing-desk.”

“Fetch them,” said Davis, as he walked to the window and looked out.

Classon soon re-entered the room with a large open letter in his hand.

“There’s the map of the country!” said he, throwing it down on the table. “What would you call the fair odds in such a case, Kit, – a private soldier’s chance of a peerage that has been undisturbed since Edward the Third?”

“About ten thousand to one, I ‘d call it.”

“I agree with you, particularly since Froode is in it. He only takes up these cases to make a compromise. They ‘re always ‘settled.’ He’s a wonderful fellow to sink the chambers and charge the mine, but he never explodes, – never!”

“So that Froode can always be squared, eh?” asked Davis.

“Always.” Classon now ran his eyes over the letter, and, mumbling the lines half aloud, said, “In which case the Conways of Abergeldy, deriving from the second son, would take precedence of the Beecher branch.’ The case is this,” added he, aloud: “Viscompt Lackington’s peerage was united to the estates by an act of Edward; a motion for a repeal of this was made in Elizabeth’s time, and lost – some aver the reverse; now the claimant, Conway, relies upon the original act, since in pursuit of the estates he invalidates the title. It’s a case to extort money, and a good round sum too. I ‘d say Lord Lack-ington might give twenty thousand to have all papers and documents of the claim surrendered into his hands.”

“A heavy sum, twenty thousand,” muttered Davis, slowly.

“So it is, Kit; but when you come to tot up suits at Nisi Prius, suits in Equity, searches at the Herald’s office, and hearings before the Lords, you ‘ll see it is a downright saving.”

“But could Lackington afford this? What is he worth?”

“They call the English property twelve thousand a year, and he has a small estate in Ireland besides. In fact, it is out of that part of the property the mischief has come. This Conway’s claim was discovered in some old country-house there, and Froode is only partially instructed in it.”

“And now, Paul,” said Davis, slowly, “if you got a commission to square this here affair and make all comfortable, how would you go about it?”

“Acting for which party, do you mean?” asked Paul.

“I mean for the Lackingtons.”

“Well, there are two ways. I ‘d send for Froode, and say, ‘What’s the lowest figure for the whole?’ or I’d despatch a trusty fellow to the Crimea to watch Conway, and see what approaches they are making to him. Of course they’ll send a man out there, and it ought n’t to be hard to get hold of him, or, if not himself, of all his papers and instructions.”

“That looks business-like,” said Grog, encouragingly.

“After all, Kit, these things, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, are only snaps of the percussion-cap. There ‘s scarcely a peerage in England is not menaced with an attempt of the kind; but such is the intermarriage – such the close tie of affinity between them – they stand manfully to the fellow in possession. They know in their hearts, if once they let the world begin to pick out a stone here or there, the whole wall may come tumbling down, and so they say, ‘Here ‘s one of us since Henry II.‘s time going to be displaced for some upstart fellow none of us ever heard of.’ What signifies legitimacy that dates seven centuries back, in favor of one probably a shoemaker or a house-painter? They won’t stand that, Kit, and reasonably enough, too. I suppose you’ve heard all about this case from Beecher?”

“Well, I have heard something about it,” said Grog, in confusion, for the suddenness of the question disconcerted him; “but he don’t care about it.”

“Very likely not. If Lackington were to have a son, it would n’t concern him much.”

“Not alone that, but he does n’t attach any importance to the claim; he says it’s all got up to extort money.”

“What of that? When a highwayman stops you with the same errand, does n’t the refusal occasionally provoke him to use force? I know very few things so hard to deal with as menaces to extort money. Life is, after all, very like the game the Americans call ‘Poker,’ where the grand secret is, never to ‘brag’ too far on a bad hand. What was your part in this business, Kit?” asked he, after a brief silence.

“How do you mean by my part?” rejoined Davis, gruffly.

“I mean, how were you interested? Do you hold any of Lackington’s paper? – have you got any claims on the reversion? – in a word, does it in any way concern you which king reigns in Israel?”

“It might, or it might not,” said Grog, dryly. “Now for a question to you. Could you manage to get employed in the affair, – to be sent out after this Conway, – or is it too late?”

“It might, or it might not,” said Classon, with a significant imitation of the other’s tone and manner. Davis understood the sarcasm in a moment, and in a voice of some irritation said, —

“Don’t you try to come the whip-hand over me, Holy Paul. If there be anything to do in this matter, it is I, and not you, will be paymaster; so much for this, so much for that, – there’s the terms!”

“It is such dealings I like best,” said Classon, blandly “Men would have benefited largely in this world had probity been parcelled out as task-work instead of being made daily labor.”

“I suspect that neither you nor I would have had much employment either way,” said Davis, with a bitter laugh. “But come, you must be stirring. You ‘ll have to be off out of this before the afternoon. The Rhine steamer touches at Neuwied at three, and I expect my daughter by this boat. I don’t want her to see you just yet awhile, Paul. You ‘ll start for Höchst, put up at the inn there, and communicate with me at once, so that I may be able to reckon upon you when needed. It were as well, too, that you’d write a line to Froode, and say that on second thoughts that expedition to the Crimea might suit; explore the way, in fact, and let me know the tidings. As to terms,” said Grog, – for the other’s blank look expressed hesitation, – “if I say, ‘Go,’ you shall say ‘For what?’”

“I do love these frank and open dealings,” said Paul, warmly.

“Look here!” said Davis, as the other was about to leave the room; “old Joe Morris, of Mincing Lane, made his fortune by buying up all the forged bills of exchange he could lay hands on, well knowing that the fellows he could hang or transport any day would be trusty allies. Now, I have all my life committed every critical thing to somebody or other that no other living man would trust with a sixpence. They stood to me as I stood to them, and they knew why. Need I tell you that why?”

“No necessity in the world to do so,” said Paul, blandly.

“That ‘s enough,” said Davis. “Come to me when you’re ready, and I’ll have some cash for you.”

CHAPTER VIII. A FAMILY MEETING

Along a road pleasantly shaded by linden-trees, Davis strolled leisurely that afternoon to meet his daughter. It was a mellow autumnal day, – calm, silent, and half sombre, – one of those days in which the tranquil aspect of nature has an influence of sad but soothing import, and even the least meditative minds are led to reflection. Down the deep valley, where the clear trout-stream eddied along, while the leafy chestnut-trees threw their shadows over the water; over the rich pasture-lands, where the spotted cattle roamed; high up the blue mountains, whose snowy summits mingled with the clouds, – Davis wandered with his eyes, and felt, he knew not why or how, a something of calming, subduing effect upon a brain racked with many a scheme, wearied with many a plot.

As he gazed down upon that fair scene where form and color and odor were blended into one beauteous whole, a struggling effort of fancy sent through his mind the question, “Is this, after all, the real prize of life? Is this peaceful existence worth all the triumphs that we strive and fight for?” And then came the thought, “Could this be lasting, what would a nature like mine become, thus left in rust and disuse? Could I live? or should I enjoy life without that eternal hand-to-hand conflict with my fellow-men, on which skill and ready wit are exercised?” He pondered long over this notion, nor could he satisfy himself with any conclusion.

He thought he could remember a time when he would thoroughly have liked all this, – when he could have taken leave of the busy world without one regret, and made the great race of life a mere “walk over;” but now that he had tasted the poisonous fascination of that combat, where man is pitted against man, and where even the lust of gain is less stimulating than a deadly sense of jealous rivalry, it was too late – too late! How strange, too, did it seem to him, as he looked back upon his wild and stormy life, with all its perils and all its vicissitudes, to think that an existence so calm, so uneventful, and so safe, could yet be had, – that a region existed where craft could find no exercise, where subtlety might be in disuse! It was to him like a haven that he was rejoiced to know, – a harbor whose refuge, some one day or other, he would search out; but there was yet one voyage to make, – one grand venture, – which, if successful, would be the crowning fortune of his life!

The sharp crack, crack of a postilion’s whip started him from his musings, and, looking up, he saw a post-carriage approaching at full speed. He waved his hat as the carriage came near for the men to draw up, and the next moment Lizzy Davis was in her father’s arms. He kissed her twice, and then, holding her back, gazed with proud delight at her beautiful features, never more striking than in that moment of joyful meeting.

“How well you are looking, Lizzy!” said he, with a thick utterance.

“And you too, dear papa,” said she, caressingly. “This quiet rural life seems to have agreed wonderfully with you. I declare you look five years younger for it, does he not, Mr. Beecher?”

“Ah, Beecher, how are you?” cried Davis, warmly shaking the other’s hand. “This is jolly, to be all together again,” said he, as, drawing his daughter’s arm within his own, and taking Beecher on the other side, he told the postilions to move forward, while they would find their way on foot.

“How did you ever hit upon this spot?” asked Beecher; “we could n’t find it on the map.”

“I came through here some four-and-twenty years ago, and I never forget a place nor a countenance. I thought at the time it might suit me, some one day or other, to remember, and you see I was right. You are grown fatter, Lizzy; at least I fancy so. But come, tell me about your life at Aix, – was it pleasant? was the place gay?”

“It was charming, papa!” cried she, in ecstasy; “had you only been with us, I could not have come away. Such delightful rides and drives, beautiful environs, and then the Cursaal of an evening, with all its odd people, – not that my guardian, here, fancied so much my laughing at them.”

“Well, you did n’t place much restraint upon yourself, I must say.”

“I was reserved even to prudery; I was the caricature of Anglo-Saxon propriety,” said she, with affected austerity.

“And what did they think of you, eh?” asked Davis trying to subdue the pride that would, in spite of him, twinkle in his eye.

“I was the belle of the season. I assure you it is perfectly true!”

“Come, come, Lizzy – ”

“Well, ask Mr. Beecher. Be honest now, and confess frankly, were you not sulky at driving out with me the way the people stared? Didn’t you complain that you never expected to come home from the play without a duel or something of the kind on your hands? Did you not induce me to ruin my toilette just to escape what you so delicately called ‘our notoriety’? Oh, wretched man! what triumphs did I not relinquish out of compliance to your taste for obscurity!”

“By Jove! we divided public attention with Ferouk Khan and his wives. I don’t see that my taste for obscurity obtained any brilliant success.”

“I never heard of such black ingratitude!” cried she, in mock indignation. “I assure you, pa, I was a martyr to his English notions, which, to me, seem to have had their origin in Constantinople.”

“Poor Beecher!” said Davis, laughingly.

“Poor Beecher, no, but happy Beecher, envied by thousands. Not indeed,” added she, with a smile, “that his appearance at this moment suggests any triumphant satisfaction. Oh, papa, you should have seen him when the Russian Prince Ezerboffsky asked me to dance, or when the Archduke Albrecht offered me his horses; or, better still, the evening the Margrave lighted up his conservatory just to let me see it.”

“Your guardianship had its anxieties, I perceive,” said Davis, dryly.

“I think it had,” said Beecher, sighing. “There were times I ‘d have given five thousand, if I had it, that she had been safe under your own charge.”

“My dear fellow, I’d have given fifty,” said Davis, “if I did n’t know she was just in as good hands as my own.” There was a racy heartiness in this speech that thrilled through Beecher’s heart, and he could scarcely credit his ears that it was Grog spoke it. “Ay, Beecher,” added he, as he drew the other’s arm closer to his side, “there was just one man – one single man in Europe – I ‘d have trusted with the charge.”

“Really, gentlemen,” said Lizzy, with a malicious sparkle of the eye, “I am lost in my conjectures whether I am to regard myself as a sort of human Koh-i-noor – a priceless treasure – or something so very difficult to guard, so perilous to protect, as can scarcely be accounted a flattery. Say, I entreat of you, to which category do I belong?”

“A little to each, I should say, – eh, Beecher?” cried Grog, laughingly.

“Oh, don’t appeal to him, papa. He only wants to vaunt his heroism the higher, because the fortress he guarded was so easy of assault!”

Beecher was ill-fitted to engage in such an encounter, and stammered out some commonplace apology for his own seeming want of gallantry.

“She’s too much for us, Beecher, – too much for us. It’s a pace we can’t keep up,” muttered Grog in the other’s ear. And Beecher nodded a ready assent to the speech.

“Well,” said Lizzy, gayly, “now that your anxieties are well over, I do entreat of you to unbend a little, and let us see the lively, light-hearted Mr. Annesley Beecher, of whose pleasant ways I have heard so much.”

“I used to be light-hearted enough once, eh, Davis?” said Beecher, with a sigh. “When you saw me first at the Derby – of, let me see, I don’t remember the year, but it was when Danby’s mare Petrilla won, – with eighteen to one ‘given and taken’ against her, the day of the race, – Brown Davy, the favorite, coming in a bad third, – he died the same night.”

“Was he ‘nobbled’?” asked Lizzy, dryly.

“What do you mean?” cried Grog, gruffly. “Where did you learn that word?”

“Oh, I’m quite strong in your choice vocabulary,” said she, laughingly; “and you are not to fancy that in the dissipations of Aix I have forgotten the cares of my education. My guardian there set me a task every morning, – a page of Burke’s Peerage and a column of the ‘Racing Calendar;’ and for the ninth Baron of Fitzfoodle, or the fifteenth winner of the Diddlesworth, you may call on me at a moment.”

The angry shadow on Davis’s brow gradually faded away, and he laughed a real, honest, and good-humored laugh.

“What do you say to the Count, Lizzy?” asked he next. “There was a fine gentleman, wasn’t he?”

“There was the ease and the self-possession of good breeding without the manners. He was amusing from his own self-content, and a sort of latent impression that he was taking you in, and when one got tired of that, he became downright stupid.”

“True as a book, every word of it!” cried Beecher, in hearty gratitude, for he detested the man, and was envious of his small accomplishments.

“His little caressing ways, too, ceased to be flatteries, when you saw that, like the cheap bonbons scattered at a carnival, they were made for the million.”

“Hit him again, he has n’t got no friends!” said Beecher, with an assumed slang in his tone.

“But worst of all was that mockery of good nature, – a false air of kindliness about him. It was a spurious coinage, so cleverly devised that you looked at every good guinea afterwards with distrust.”

“How she knows him, – how she reads him!” cried Davis, in delight.

“He was very large print, papa,” said she, smiling.

“Confound me!” cried Beecher, “if I didn’t think you liked him, you used to receive him so graciously; and I’ll wager he thinks himself a prime favorite with you.”

“So he may, if it give him any pleasure,” said she, with a careless laugh.

Davis marked the expression of Beecher’s face as she said these words; he saw how that distrustful nature was alarmed, and he hastened to repair the mischief.

“I am sure you never affected to feel any regard for him, Lizzy?” said Davis.

“Regard for him!” said she, haughtily; “I should think not! Such people as he are like the hired horses that every one uses, and only asks that they should serve for the day they have taken them.”

“There, Beecher,” said Davis, with a laugh. “I sincerely hope she’s not going to discuss your character or mine.”

“By Jove! I hope not.” And in the tone in which Beecher uttered this there was an earnestness that made the other laugh heartily.

“Well, here we are. This is your home for the present,” said Davis, as he welcomed them to the little inn, whose household were all marshalled to receive them with fitting deference.

The arrangements within doors were even better than the picturesque exterior promised; and when Lizzy came down to dinner, she was in raptures about her room, its neatness even to elegance, and the glorious views that opened before the windows.

“I’m splendidly lodged too,” said Beecher; “and they have given me a dressing-room, with a little winding-stair to the river, and a bath in the natural rock. It is downright luxury, all this.”

Davis smiled contentedly as he listened. For days past had he been busied with these preparations, determined to make the spot appear in all its most favorable colors. Let us do him justice to own that his cares met a full success. Flowers abounded in all the rooms; and the perfumed air, made to seem tremulous by the sounds of falling water, was inexpressibly calming after the journey. The dinner, too, would have done honor to a more pretentious “hostel;” and the Steinberger, a cabinet wine, that the host would not part with except for “love as well as money,” was perfection. Better than all these, – better than the fresh trout with its gold and azure speckles, – better than the delicate Rehbraten with its luscious sauce, – better than the red partridges in their bed of truffles, and a dessert whose grapes rivalled those of Fontainebleau, – better, I say, than all, was the happy temper of the hour! Never were three people more disposed for enjoyment. To Lizzy, it was the oft dreamed-of home, the quiet repose of a spot surrounded with all the charm of scenery, coming, too, just as the dissipations of gayety had begun to weary and pall upon her. To Beeeher, it was the first moment of all his life in which he tasted peace. Here were neither duns nor bailiffs. It was a Paradise where no writ had ever wandered, nor the word “outlawry” had ever been uttered. As for Davis, if he had not actually won his game, he held in his hand the trump card that he knew must gain it. What signified, now, a day or even a week more or less; the labor of his long ambition was all but completed, and he saw the goal reached that he had striven for years to attain.

Nor were they less pleased with each other. Never had Lizzy seemed to Beecher’s eyes more fascinating than now. In all the blaze of full dress she never looked more beautiful than in that simple muslin, with the sky-blue ribbon in her glossy hair, and the boquet of moss roses coquettishly placed above her ear, for – I mention it out of accuracy – she wore her hair drawn back, as was the mode about a century ago, and was somewhat ingenious in her imitation of that mock-shepherdess coiffure so popular with fine ladies of that time. She would have ventured on a “patch” if it were not out of fear for her father; not, indeed, that the delicate fairness of her skin, or the dazzling brilliancy of her eyes, needed the slightest aid from art. Was it with some eye to keeping a toilette that she wore a profusion of rings, many of great price and beauty? I know not her secret; if I did, I should assuredly tell it, for I suspect none of her coquetries were without their significance. To complete Beecher’s satisfaction, Davis was in a mood of good humor, such as he had never seen before.

Not a word of contradiction, not one syllable of disparagement fell from his lips, that Beecher usually watched with an utmost childish terror, dreading reproof at every moment, and not being over certain when his opinions would pass without a censure. Instead of this, Grog was conciliating even to gentleness, constantly referred to Beecher what he thought of this or that, and even deferred to his better judgment on points whereon he might have been supposed to be more conversant. Much valued reader, has it ever been your fortune in life to have had your opinions on law blandly approved of by an ex-Chancellor, your notions of medicine courteously confirmed by a great physician, or your naval tactics endorsed by an admiral of the fleet? If so, you can fully appreciate the ecstasy of Annesley Beecher as he found all his experiences of the sporting world corroborated by the “Court above.” This was the gold medal he had set his heart on for years, – this the great prize of all his life; and now he had won it, and he was really a “sharp fellow.” There is an intense delight in the thought of having realized a dream of ambition, of which, while our own hearts gave us the assurance of success, the world at large only scoffed at our attempting. To be able to say, “Yes, here I am, despite all your forebodings and all your predictions, – I knew it was ‘in me’!” is a very proud thing, and such a moment of vaingloriousness is pardonable enough.

How enjoyable at such a moment of triumph was it to hear Lizzy sing and play, making that miserable old piano discourse in a guise it had never dreamed of! She was in one of those moods wherein she blended the wildest flights of fancy with dashes of quaint humor, now breathing forth a melody of Spohr’s in accents of thrilling pathos, now hitting off in improvised doggerel a description of Aix and its company, with mimicries of their voice and manner irresistibly droll. In these imitations the Count, and even Beecher himself, figured, till Grog, fairly worn out with laughter, had to entreat her to desist.

As for Beecher, he was a good-tempered fellow, and the little raillery at himself took nothing from the pleasure of the description, and he laughed in ready acknowledgment of many a little trait of his own manner that he never suspected could have been detected by another.

“Ain’t she wonderful, – ain’t she wonderful?” exclaimed Grog, as she strolled out into the garden, and left them alone together.

“What I can’t make out is, she has no blank days,” said Beecher. “She was just as you saw her there, the whole time we were at Aix; and while she’s rattling away at the piano, and going on with all manner of fun, just ask her a serious question, – I don’t care about what, – and she’ll answer you as if she had been thinking of nothing else for the whole day before.”