“Yes.”

“Then they did’nt suit me.”

“No,” assented Redbud.

“I don’t dance the minuet—­so I did’nt want high-healed shoes—­”

Fanny began to laugh again.

“Nor a cocked hat; the fact is, I do not know how to bow.”

“See!  Come, Mr. Fisher-for-Compliments!” cried Fanny.

“Oh, I never do!”

“Well, I believe you don’t.”

“Does anybody?”

“Yes; that odious cousin of mine—­that’s who does—­the conceited coxcomb!”

“Your cousin!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who is it?”

“Ralph Ashley.”

“Oh—­and he comes to see you—­and—­Miss Sallianna; she said—­”

Verty’s head drooped, and a shadow passed over his ingenuous face.

“There, you’re thinking of Miss Sallianna again!”

“No—­no,” murmured Verty, gazing at Redbud with a melancholy tenderness, and trying to understand whether there could possibly be any foundation for Miss Sallianna’s charge, that that young lady was in love with Mr. Ralph Ashley.

“Could it be?  Oh, no, no!”

“Could what be?” asked Fanny.

For once Verty was reserved.

“Nothing,” he said.

But still he continued to gaze at Redbud with such sad tenderness, that a deep color came into her cheek, and her eyes were cast down.

She turned away; and then Miss Lavinia’s advice came to her mind, and with a sorrowful cloud upon her face, she reproached herself for the kindness of her manner to Verty, in their present interview.

“I think I’ll go and gather some flowers, yonder,” she said, smiling faintly, and with a sad, kind look to Verty, in spite of all.  “Fanny and yourself can talk until I return, you know—­”

“Let me go with you,” said Verty, moving to her side.

Redbud hesitated.

“Come, Redbud!” said Verty, persuasively smiling.

“Oh, no!  I think I would like to get the one’s I prefer.”

And she moved away.

Verty gazed after her with melancholy tenderness—­his face lit up with the old dreamy Indian smile.  We need not say that the notable scheme suggested by Miss Sallianna—­namely, his making love to some one else to try Redbud—­had never crossed the ingenuous mind of the young man.  From that pure mirror the obscuring breath soon disappeared.  He did not wish to try Redbud—­he loved her too much; and now he remained silent gazing after her, and wholly unconscious of the existence of Miss Fanny.

That young lady pouted, and uttered an expressive “hum!”

Verty turned his eyes absently toward her.

“You can go, sir, if you don’t like my society—­I am not anxious to detain you!” said Miss Fanny, with refreshing candor.

“Go where?” said Verty.

“After Redbud.”

“She don’t want me to.”

“Hum!”

And this little exclamation indicated the light in which Fanny regarded the excuse.