“‘I should think he would, after having no dinner,’ said Faith.

“’There’s Cindy, this minute!  Run and tell her to go right away, and find out what his name is,—­tell her I want to know,—­you can put it in good words.’

“Cindy presently came back, and handed a card to Faith.

“‘It’s easy done,’ said Cindy.  ’I jest asked him if he’d any objections towards tellin’ his name,—­and he kinder opened his eyes at me, and said, “No.”  Then I said, says I, “Mis’ Derrick do’ know, and she’d like ter.”  “Miss Derrick!” says he, and he took out his pencil and writ that.  But I’d like ter know what he cleans his pencil with,’ said Cindy, in conclusion, for I’m free to confess I never see brass shine so in my born days.’”

Cindy’s “free confessions” are an important feature of the book.

In Chapter VI, Squire Deacon and his sister hold a brief Yankee dialogue, of which this is a sample:—­

“‘Sam! what are you bothering yourself about Mr. Linden for?’

“‘How long since you was made a trustee?’ said the Squire, beginning his sentence with an untranslatable sort of grunt, and ending it in his teacup.

“‘I’ve been your trustee ever since you was up to anything,’ said his sister.  ’Come, Sam,—­don’t you begin now!  What’s made you so crusty?’

“‘It a’n’t the worst thing to be crusty,’ said the Squire.  ’Shows a man’s more’n half baked, anyhow.’

“‘Well, what has he done?’

“‘Sure enough!’ said the Squire, ’what has he done?  That’s just what I can’t find out.’

“‘What do you want to find out for?  What ails him?’

“‘Suppose he hasn’t done nothin’.  Is that the sort o’ man to teach litteratur in Pattaquasset?’

“’Now, Sam Deacon, what do you expect to do by all this fuss you’re making?’ said his sister, judicially.

“’What’s the use of cross-examining a man at that rate?  When I do anything, you’ll know it.’”

The characters are all invested with reality by skilfully introduced anecdotes, or by personal traits carelessly and happily sketched.  But it is a costly expedient to give this reality, when our authors bring in pet names, and other “love-lispings,” which are sacred in privacy and painfully ridiculous when exposed to the curious light.  Many of us readers find all this mawkish and silly, and others of us are pained that to such scrutiny should be exposed the dearest secrets of affection, and are not anxious to have them exposed to our own gaze.  It is too trying a confidence, too high an honor, to be otherwise than unwelcome.  With this criticism we close our notice of “Say and Seal,” in which we have been sparing neither of praise nor blame, earnestly thanking the authors for a book that is worth finding fault with.

* * * * *

How Could He Help It? or, The Heart Triumphant.  By A.S.  ROE.  New York:  Derby & Jackson.