“Mr. Biddle has offered me a cashiership for Claude,” he remarked, carelessly, “in a thriving town in Georgia, and I shall accept for him forthwith.  Then, if Miss Stanbury chooses to accompany him into exile, it will be all for the best; but, were he about to remain here, I would not suffer him to think of matrimony for years to come.  ’A young man married is a young man marred,’ as Shakespeare says somewhere, I believe; and I agree with him.  A youth of twenty-one ought to be free for a season until he can shape his life.”

I felt myself tremble from head to foot.  I had never contemplated the possibility of his absence, and the conviction of my deep interest in him flashed across me for the first time with lightning force and vividness.  Evelyn did not reproach me for blushing this time; I was pale enough to satisfy even her spleen.  Indeed, some better feeling than she had before manifested seemed to inspire her now, for she filled another glass of wine and motioned me to drink it.  I had merely sipped from mine when papa proposed his toast, and Franklin had borne it away with the others in making ready for the dessert.

“Don’t let that man read you,” she said, in a low, eager voice, not lost on me.  I drank the wine, and met his glance steadily this time, and gave him look for look.  My secret had nerved me well.

That evening Claude Bainrothe came.

“When do you enter the sacred bands of matrimony with Miss Stanbury, Mr. Bainrothe?” asked Evelyn, in her usual, cool, provoking way, sipping a glass of iced lemonade as she spoke, which Claude had brought her from the refreshment-slab and humbly offered.

“And when do you assume your office in Georgia?” I asked in the next breath, encouraged by her example, and perhaps, alas! eager to know the truth, scarcely lifting my eyes to his as I spoke.

He glanced from one to the other with a bewildered air, quite foreign from his usual self-possession.

“I protest, ladies, I do not understand your allusions,” he replied at last, with such an air of truth that, taking pity on him, we explained the matter laughingly.

“My poor father is falling into that sear and yellow leaf, his dotage,” he said, “that is evident; what could possess him to maunder so?  I really believe he is in love with Miss Stanbury himself, and is wire-working merely to gain my consent.  As to going to Georgia, I would as soon bury myself up to my neck in the sea-sand and bear the vertical sun for twenty sequent noons, as to dream of such a step.  The old gentleman is a lunatic, and should be cared for without delay.  I will get Dr. Parrish to see after him to-morrow.”

“But I did hear you say you were going to Copenhagen with our minister,” said George Gaston, who had swung himself softly up to our party on his crutches, unobserved by any one, while Claude was speaking, and now stood glaring upon him.

“Ah, that is a different matter.  I may go there, George.  I am told it is a very gay court; besides, I am curious about Denmark, naturally.  Every one is who loves Shakespeare and the ‘royal Dane,’ you know.”