Miss Trapper levelled a sharp glance at him, and said, “I suppose not.”

The remark was tartly made; but Matthew had noticed that she habitually spoke quick and short.

“Our acquaintance has thus far been very pleasant, Miss Trapper; at least on my side,” whispered Matthew.  “Must it stop here?”

To which Miss Trapper replied, “I don’t know.”

Though the observation was not encouraging, it was, on the other hand, not entirely forbidding.

“Since we are to be separated for three months, Miss Trapper, might I solicit the great privilege of corresponding with you occasionally?”

Miss Trapper’s thin lips expelled two words, like shot out of a gun:  “What for?”

“What for?” echoed the amazed Matthew.  “Why—­for the pleasure of exchanging our ideas, you know.”

“That would be a bore,” said Miss Trapper.

“I didn’t understand you,” said Matthew, distrusting his ears.

“I said it would be a bore—­a bore!” returned Miss Trapper, with painful distinctness.  “I hate letter writing.”

“Oh! ah!  Do you?” said Matthew, feebly.  “Perhaps you would like some pickled cauliflower, Miss Trapper?”

“Thank you.”

Matthew handed the pickled cauliflower to her, and held his tongue, satisfied with what he had seen of Miss Trapper’s singularity, and not at all anxious to receive a larger piece of her mind.

“I am doomed to be a bachelor,” thought Matthew, with a suppressed groan.  But Hope, which attends upon fat and lean men alike, whispered in his mind’s ear, “Why not marry a woman as fat as yourself?”

“A capital idea!” thought Matthew “and if there’s no other way to find one, I’ll advertise for her.”

Dinner was protracted to a length that seemed tedious to all but the representatives of the old school.  When it did come to an end, the party adjourned to the parlors, where a reasonable time was devoted to conversation and flirtation.  At length the musicians, having taken their wedding dinner in their apartment, and drank full bumpers (which, somehow, never interfere with the accuracy of musical performances) to the health of the happy pair, struck up a quadrille, which was at once interpreted by the younger people as a signal for dancing.  Two sets were instantly formed, and rattled through with.  The Lancers followed, and was liked so much that the musicians were called upon to repeat it three times.  The sets had now increased to four, filling the two parlors, and crowding the elderly people to the wall or the hallway.  Then, luckily, old Van Quintem bethought himself of the old-fashioned contra-dance, as a contrivance for bringing his contemporaries on their legs.  By an extraordinary piece of good fortune, the musicians had learned it, and played it at a silver wedding the week previous.

As the familiar notes, not heard for years, saluted the ears of the bachelor Bank President, he showed the animation of an old war-horse at the sound of the trumpet.  “Now is our time,” said he.