“I am sorry that I have not the ability to make myself better understood.  It can only be the fault of my dullness; for I again affirm that the danger is as apparent to my eyes as the sun at noon day.”

“Then we must continue blind, sir,” returned Mrs Wyllys, with a cold salute.  “I thank you for your good and kind intentions, but you cannot blame us for not consenting to follow advice which is buried in so much obscurity.  Although in our own grounds, we shall be pardoned the rudeness of leaving you.  The hour appointed for our departure has now arrived.”

Wilder returned the grave bow of Mrs Wyllys with one quite as formal as her own; though he bent with greater grace, and with more cordiality, to the deep but hurried curtesy of Gertrude Grayson.  He remained in the precise spot, however, in which they left him, until he saw them enter the villa; and he even fancied he could catch the anxious expression of another timid glance which the latter threw in his direction, as her light form appeared to float from before his sight.  Placing one hand on the wall, the young sailor then leaped into the highway.  As his feet struck the ground, the slight shock seemed to awake him from his abstraction, and he became conscious that he stood within six feet of the old mariner, who had now twice stepped so rudely between him and the object he had so much at heart, The latter did not allow him time to give utterance to his disappointment; for he was the first himself to speak.

“Come, brother,” he said, in friendly, confidential tones, and shaking his head, like one who wished to show to his companion that he was aware of the deception he had attempted to practise; “come, brother, you have stood far enough on this tack, and it is time to try another.  Ay, I’ve been young myself in my time, and I know what a hard matter it is to give the devil a wide birth, when there is fun to be found in sailing in his company:  But old age brings us to our reckonings; and, when the life is getting on short allowance with a poor fellow, he begins to think of being sparing of his tricks, just as water is saved in a ship, when the calms set in, after it has been spilt about decks like rain, for weeks and months on end.  Thought comes with gray hairs, and no one is the worse for providing a little of it among his other small stores.”

“I had hoped, when I gave you the bottom of the hill, and took the top myself,” returned Wilder, without even deigning to look at his disagreeable companion, “that we had parted company for ever.  As you seem, however, to prefer the high ground, I leave you to enjoy it at your leisure; I shall descend into the town.”

The old man shuffled after him, with a gait that rendered it difficult for Wilder, who was by this time in a fast walk, to outstrip him, without resorting to the undignified expedient of an actual flight.  Vexed alike with himself and his tormentor, he was tempted to offer some violence to the latter; and then, recalled to his reccollection by the dangerous impulse he moderated his pace, and continued his route with a calm determination to be superior to any emotions that such a pitiful object could excite.