“I never heard you speak of your father before; in fact, I never knew you had one.”

“It was not necessary to speak of him; he has been dead many years.”

“And left you nothing to remember him by.  Now a man with an estate has a perpetual reminder.”

“So has the son of a famous man; and people are continually depreciating him, comparing his little bud of promise with the ripe fruitage of the ancestral tree.  I prefer to acquire my own fortune and my own fame.  My father did his part by giving me being and educating me.—­But come; your pipe is out; you draw like a pump, without puffing even a nebula of smoke.”

“I suppose I must yield.  First a lavation; this Virginian incense is more agreeable to devout worshippers like you and me than to the uninitiated.  There,” (wiping the water from his moustaches,) “now I am qualified to meet that queenly rose, Mrs. Sandford, or even that delicate spring violet of yours,—­if we should find the nook where she blooms.”

“You are the most tantalizing fellow!  How provokingly cool you are, to stand dallying as though you were going on the most indifferent errand!  And all the while to remind me of what I have lost.  Come, you look sufficiently fascinating; your gray moustache has the proper artistic curl; your hair is carelessly-well-arranged.”

“So the boy can’t wait for due preparation.  There, I believe I am ready.”

Arrived at the house where Mrs. Sandford boarded, they were ushered into the reception-room; but Easelmann, bidding his friend wait, followed the servant upstairs.  Waiting is never an agreeable employment.  The courtier in the ante-chamber before the expected audience, the office-seeker at the end of a cue in the Presidential mansion, the beau lounging in the drawing-room while the idol of his soul is in her chamber busy with the thousand little arts that are to complete her charms,—­none of these find that time speeds.  To Greenleaf the delay was full of torture; he paced the room, looked at the pictures without seeing anything, looked out of the window, turned over the gift-books on the table, counted the squares in the carpet, and finally sat down in utter despair.  At length Easelmann returned.  Greenleaf started up.

“Where is she?  Have you seen her?  Why doesn’t she come down?  And why, in the name of goodness, have you kept me waiting in this outrageous way?”

“I don’t know.—­I have not—­I can’t tell you.—­And because I couldn’t help it.—­Never say, after this, I don’t answer all your questions.”

“Now, what is the use of all this mystery?”

“Softly, my friend; and let us not make a mess of it.  Mrs. Sandford advises us to walk out awhile.”

“I am obliged to her and to you for your well-meant caution, but I don’t intend to go out until I have seen Alice,—­if she will see me.”

“But consider.”

“I have considered, and am determined to see her; I can’t endure this suspense.”