The servant showed the two callers to the speckless little front parlor; and, a minute afterward, Miss Pillbody, looking fresh and neat, her narrow collar white and smooth, and every hair of her heavy brown tresses in its place, made her appearance.

Miss Pillbody entered the room in that noiseless, sliding way, which indicates a constitutional diffidence.  Her eyelids involuntarily contracted, so that she might see her callers on a near approach to them.  Fayette Overtop, marking her modest demeanor and her short-sightedness, immediately announced his name and that of his companion, and the object of their visit.

At the mention of his name, Miss Pillbody started.  She had heard of Fayette Overtop, Esq., through the newspapers, as counsel for Marcus Wilkeson; but not as the philosophic friend of Mrs. Slapman.  In reply to questions about Miss Minford, she stated that that interesting young pupil had not taken lessons from her since the death of her father.

Miss Pillbody here indulged in a little artifice.  She produced a memorandum book, to see when Miss Minford took her last lesson; and, in order that she might read distinctly, drew out her eyeglasses, and adjusted them with a graceful movement of the arm and hand.  Overtop thought that she handled the eyeglasses in a most ladylike manner; and that, when they were astride of her shapely nose, they became her face wonderfully.

When Miss Pillbody had referred to the little memorandum book, she gave one short look at Fayette Overtop.  That gentleman, conscious that his face was scrutinized, looked at the wall.  Miss Pillbody stole but one glance, and then shut the eyeglasses prettily, and stuck them into an invisible pocket of her waist.  She had come to the conclusion that Mr. Overtop was a person of dignified and intelligent appearance.  And Mr. Overtop had settled into the opinion that Miss Pillbody was a near approach to that imagined paragon—­a sensible woman.

Mr. Overtop was about to make a shrewd remark upon the great superiority of private select schools over all public institutions for the education of young ladies, when Miss Pillbody rose.

“Do you desire any other information, gentlemen?” said she.

“No, I thank you, Miss Pillbody,” returned Overtop, who interpreted her question to mean that a pupil was waiting for her somewhere—­which was true; for Mrs. Gipscon, a fat lady of forty-eight, was taking her second grammar lesson in the back parlor.

The two callers seized their hats.

“Could I intrust you with a message for Miss Minford, Mr. Overtop?”

“With a thousand,” said that gallant man.

“Please, then, give my love to her, and ask her to come round and see me.”

Mr. Overtop would have said that he always found it difficult to carry a lady’s love to another without keeping some himself; but then he thought that this might be a little bold for a stray caller.  So he answered, “With pleasure.”