Having set out on my race of suspecting, my steeds did not lag.  They were winged already, and I goaded them continually with memories.  There was nothing I did not think of or accuse him of,—­especially, the last and worst sin of breaking off our engagement at the eleventh hour!—­and I, who had suffered silently, secretly, untold torments about that name of his,—­nobody, no man, could ever guess how keenly, because no man can ever feel as a woman does about such things!  Men,—­they would as soon marry Tabitha as Juliana.  They could call her “Wife.”  It made no matter to them.  What did any man care, provided she chronicled small beer, whether she had taste, feeling, sentiment, anything?  Here I was wrong, as most passionate people are at some time in their lives.  Some men do care.

At the moment I had reached the top-most pinnacle of my wrath, and was darting lightnings on all mankind, Polly showed in Lieutenant Herbert, with his book of promised engravings.

With a natural revulsion of temper, I descended rapidly from my pinnacle, and, stepping half-way across the room, met the Lieutenant with unusual cordiality.  Mr. Sampson bowed slightly and sat still.  I drew two chairs towards the centre-table, lighted the argand, and seated myself with the young officer to examine and admire the beautiful forms in which the gifted artist has clothed the words rather than the thoughts of the writer,—­out of the coarse real, lifting the scenes into the sweet ideal,—­and out of the commonest, rudest New-England life, bringing the purest and most charming idyllic song.  We did not say this.

I looked across at the window, where still sat the figure, motionless.  Not a word from him.  I looked at Lieutenant Herbert.  He was really very handsome, with an imperial brow, and roseate lips like a girl’s.  Somehow he made me think of Claverhouse,—­so feminine in feature, so martial in action!  Then he talked,—­talked really quite well,—­reflected my own ideas in an animated and eloquent manner.

Why it was,—­whether Herbert suspected we had had a lovers’ quarrel,—­or whether his vanity was flattered at my attention to him, which was entirely unusual,—­or whether my own excited, nervous condition led me to express the most joyous life and good-humor, and shut down all my angry sorrow and indignant suspicions, while I smiled and danced over their sepulchre,—­however it was, I know not,—­but a new sparkle came into the blue eyes of the young militaire.  He was positively entertaining.  Conscious that he was talking well, he talked better.  He recited poetry; he was even witty, or seemed so.  With the magnetism of cordial sympathy, I called out from his memory treasures new and old.  He became not only animated, but devoted.