His wife bent her head a little nearer to his.

“My dear, did you never see a pair of lovers before?”

He turned his dreaming eyes at that, smiled, and pressed his lips silently to the face which was so near his own that if it had been there for the express purpose of being caressed it could hardly have been nearer.

Then slipping his arm around her waist, Mr. Bennet drew his wife toward him and pointed with his head, but so imperceptibly that only she perceived it, toward the young people, as if he saw something more than a pair of lovers.  The fond woman’s eyes followed her husband’s.  Gradually they became as intently fixed as his.  They seemed to be curiously comparing the face of the young man who sat at their daughter’s side with the face of the portrait that hung above her head.  Mrs. Bennet grew perceptibly paler as she looked.  The unconscious Edward and Ellen murmured softly together.  She did not look at him, but she felt the light of his great eyes falling upon her, and she was not unhappy.

“My dear,” began Mr. Bennet in a low tone, still studying the face and the portrait.

“Hush!” said his wife, softly, laying her head upon his shoulder; “I see it all, I am sure of it.”

Gabriel turned at this moment from his Encyclopedia.  He looked intently for some time at the group by the table, as if studying all their thoughts, and then said, gravely, in a loud, clear voice, so that Ellen dropped a stitch, Edward stopped whispering, and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet sat erect,

“Exactly.  I knew how it was.  It says distinctly, ’This plant is supposed to be a native of India; but it has long been naturalized and extensively cultivated elsewhere, particularly in Russia, where it forms an article of primary importance.’”

CHAPTER LVII.

DINING WITH LAWRENCE NEWT.

Gabriel Bennett was not confident that Edward Wynne would be at the birthday dinner given in his honor by Lawrence Newt, but he was very sure that May Newt would be there, and so she was.  It was at Delmonico’s; and a carriage arrived at the Bennets’ just in time to convey them.  Another came to Mr. Boniface Newt’s, to whom brother Lawrence explained that he had invited his daughter to dinner, and that he should send a young friend—­in fact, his confidential clerk, to accompany Miss Newt.  Brother Boniface, who looked as if he were the eternally relentless enemy of all young friends, had nevertheless the profoundest confidence in brother Lawrence, and made no objection.  So the hero of the day conducted Miss May Newt to the banquet.

The hero of the day was so engaged in conversation with Miss May Newt that he said very little to his neighbor upon the other side, who was no other than Hope Wayne.  She had been watching very curiously a young man with black curls and eyes, who seemed to have words only for his neighbor, Miss Ellen Bennet.  She presently turned and asked Gabriel if she had never seen him before.  “I have, surely, some glimmering remembrance of that face,” she said, studying it closely.