CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE BACK WINDOW.

Lawrence Newt was not unmindful of the difference of age between Amy Waring and himself; and instinctively he did nothing which could show to others that he felt more for her than for a friend.  Younger men, who could not help yielding to the charm of her presence, never complained of him.  He was never “that infernal old bore, Lawrence Newt,” to them.  More than one of them, in the ardor of young feeling, had confided his passion to Lawrence, who said to him, bravely, “My dear fellow, I do not wonder you feel so.  God speed you—­and so will I, all I can.”

And he did so.  He mentioned the candidate kindly to Miss Waring.  He repeated little anecdotes that he had heard to his advantage.  Lawrence regarded the poor suitor as a painter does a picture.  He took him up in the arms of his charity and moved him round and round.  He put him upon his sympathy as upon an easel, and turned on the kindly lights and judiciously darkened the apartment.

His generosity was chivalric, but it was unavailing.  Beautiful flowers arrived from the aspiring youths.  They were so lovely, so fragrant!  What taste that young Hal Battlebury has! remarks Lawrence Newt, admiringly, as he smells the flowers that stand in a pretty vase upon the centre-table.  Amy Waring smiles, and says that it is Thorburn’s taste, of whom Mr. Battlebury buys the flowers.  Mr. Newt replies that it is at least very thoughtful in him.  A young lady can not but feel kindly, surely, toward young men who express their good feeling in the form of flowers.  Then he dexterously leads the conversation into some other channel.  He will not harm the cause of poor Mr. Battlebury by persisting in speaking of him and his bouquets, when that persistence will evidently render the subject a little tedious.

Poor Mr. Hal Battlebury, who, could he only survey the Waring mansion from the lower floor to the roof, would behold his handsome flowers that came on Wednesday withering in cold ceremony upon the parlor-table—­and in Amy Waring’s bureau-drawer would see the little book she received from “her friend Lawrence Newt” treasured like a priceless pearl, with a pressed rose laid upon the leaf where her name and his are written—­a rose which Lawrence Newt playfully stole one evening from one of the ceremonious bouquets pining under its polite reception, and said gayly, as he took leave, “Let this keep my memory fragrant till I return.”

But it was a singular fact that when one of those baskets without a card arrived at the house, it was not left in superb solitary state upon the centre-table in the parlor, but bloomed as long as care could coax it in the strict seclusion of Miss Waring’s own chamber, and then some choicest flower was selected to be pressed and preserved somewhere in the depths of the bureau.

Could the bureau drawers give up their treasures, would any human being longer seem to be cold? would any maiden young or old appear a voluntary spinster, or any unmarried octogenarian at heart a bachelor?