“It used to be my name,” said the little smiler; “but papa always calls me Linny now, because he thinks it sweeter.”

* * * * *

“What say you to the humming-bird now?” I whispered to my aunt, as we were a moment alone in the tea-room.

“Kate, I wish you were fifty miles off at this moment!  It was no good angel that deluded me into telling you that foolish tale last evening.  Indeed, Kate,” added she, earnestly, “you will seriously compromise me, if you are not more careful.  Promise me that you will not make one more allusion of this kind, even to me, while they remain!”

“But I may give you just a look, now and then?”

“Do you wish me to repent having trusted you, Kate?”

“I promise, aunty,—­by my faith in first love!”

“Nonsense!  Go, call them to tea.”

CHAPTER IV.

Our kinsman had been easily persuaded to remain with us a week, and a charming week it had been to all of us.  He had visited all the West India Islands, and the most interesting portions of England and the Continent.  My grandfather, who, as the commander of his own merchant-ship, had formerly visited many foreign countries, was delighted to refresh his recollections of distant scenes, and to live over again his adventures by sea and land.  The conversation of our guest with his uncle was richly instructive and entertaining; for he had a lively appreciation of national and individual character, and could illustrate them by a world of amusing anecdote.  The old veteran’s early fondness for his nephew revived in full force, and his enjoyment was alloyed only by the dread of a new separation.  “What shall I do when you are gone, Harry!” was his frequent exclamation; and then he would sigh and shake his head, and wish he had one son left.

But the richest treat for my aunt and me was reserved till the late evening, when the dear patriarch had retired to rest.  Those warm, balmy nights on the piazza, with the moonlight quivering through the vines, and turning the terraced lawn with fantastic mixture of light and shadow into a fairy scene, while the cultivated traveller discoursed of all things beautiful in nature and art, were full of witchery.  Mont Blanc at sunrise, the wild scenery of the Simplon, the exhumed streets of Pompeii, the Colosseum by moonlight, those wondrous galleries of painting and sculpture of which I had read as I had read of the palace of Aladdin and the gardens of the genii,—­the living man before me had seen all these!  I looked upon him as an ambassador from the world of poetry.  But even this interested me less than the tone of high and manly sentiment by which his conversation was pervaded, the feeling reminiscences of endeared friendships formed in those far-off lands, the brief glimpses of deep sorrows bravely borne; and I watched with a sweet, sly pleasure my aunt’s quiet surrender to the old spell.