Without a prefatory word he began:  “Years before your young heart was awakened to ‘the sweetest joy, the wildest woe,’ I loved.”

“And single yet!” I exclaimed as I let my hands drop and glanced up at his brown hair, to see if all those years had left their silver footprints there.

“And single yet,” he repeated slowly, “and still worshiping at the same shrine; and to no other will I ever bow until this head is silvered o’er, and this strong arm palsied with the infirmities of age—­if a long life is indeed to be mine.”

His ardor startled me, but I managed to stitch away composedly, and he went on: 

“I know it is in the highest degree selfish to inflict on you a recital of what may not interest you; but I have tried to keep my secret buried from human eyes, from all but hers, and you are now the only being on earth to whom I have ever said, ‘I love.’  As intimate as I have been with your brother, if he knows it, it is by his penetration, for no word of acknowledgment has ever passed my lips before.  May I go on?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” I answered, taken by surprise.  “I suppose so.  It is a relief to talk, and to listen, I have told you, is my vocation.”

“How long can you listen?” he questioned in delighted eagerness.

I fancied he would have to be allowanced, and I held up my paper pattern before me:  “This bouquet of flowers is to be transferred.  I will give you all the time it will take to do it.  Remember, the catastrophe must be reached by that time.  Some one else will probably want my ear.”

“But,” said he, “listening is not the only duty of a confidante:  you must aid me by your counsel.  Only a woman may say how a woman may be won.”

“You have my sympathies, Mr. Tremont, on the score of your being a very dear brother’s friend.  I know nothing of her—­next to nothing of you.  I can neither counsel nor aid you.”

“That brother is familiar with every page of my outward life-history.  It was in our family he spent his vacation, while you and your father were traveling in Europe.”

“Well, then, that will do about yourself.  Now about her?”

The door-bell was rung:  the waiter announced—­well, my obliging brother has already given enough of his name—­“Mr. J.B.”  My confessor withdrew.

The next morning, as I was bringing the freshened flower-vases into the sitting-room, he brought me my bag, saying, “Now about her.”

I opened the piano, repeated his favorite, kept my seat and cultivated my roses vigorously.

“Miss ——­,” he began, “I would not knowingly give pain to a human creature.  Yesterday, when your visitor found me by your side, I observed a frown on his face.  I detest obtrusiveness, but if there is anything in the relation in which you stand to each other which will make my attentions objectionable to either of you, they shall cease this moment.  You are at perfect liberty to repeat to him every word I have said to you.”