“Ah! that is better.  Now let us converse about nature, my friend—­”

“If you could tell me why Redbud has—­”

Verty stopped.  He had an undeveloped idea that the subject of nature and Redbud might not appear to have any connection with each other in the mind of Miss Sallianna.

But that lady smiled.

“About Redbud?” she asked, with a languishing glance.

“Yes—­Miss.”

“What of the dear child?—­have you fallen out?  You men must not mind the follies of such children—­and Reddy is a mere child.  I should not think she could appreciate you.”

Verty was silent; he did not know exactly what appreciate meant, which may serve as a further proof of what we have said above, in relation to the necessity which Miss Sallianna felt she labored under, as a tender-hearted woman, to educate Verty.

The lady seemed to understand from her companion’s countenance, that he did not exactly comprehend the signification of her words; but as this had occurred on other occasions, and with other persons, she felt no surprise at the circumstance, attributing it, as was natural, to her own extreme cultivation and philological proficiency.  She therefore smiled, and still gently agitating the fan before Verty, repeated: 

“Have you and Redbud fallen out?”

“Yes,” said the young man.

“Concerning what?”

“I don’t know—­I mean Redbud has quarreled with me.”

“Indeed!”

Verty replied with a sigh.

“Come!” said Miss Sallianna, “make a confidant of me, and confide your feelings to a heart which beats responsive to your own.”

With which words the lady ogled Verty.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE RESULT.

Verty looked at Miss Sallianna, and sighed more deeply than he had ever sighed before.  The lady’s face was full of the tenderest interest; it seemed to say, that with its possessor all secrets were sacred, and that nothing but the purest friendship, and a desire to serve unhappy personages, influenced her.

Who wonders, therefore, that Verty began to think that it would be a vast relief to him to have a confidant—­that his inexperience needed advice and counsel—­that the lady who now offered to guide him through the maze in which he was confounded and lost, knew all about the labyrinths, and from the close association with the object of his love, could adapt her counsel to the peculiar circumstances, better than any one else in the wide world?  Besides, Verty was a lover, and when did lover yet fail to experience the most vehement desire to pour into the bosom of some sympathizing friend—­of either sex—­the story of his feelings and his hopes?  It is no answer to this, that, in the present instance, the lover was almost ignorant of the fact, that he loved, and had no well-defined hopes of any description.  That is nothing to your true Corydon.  Not in