“Oh, indeed!  Really, I must go.  Good-morning, Miss Newt.  Good-morning, Sir.”  And Mr. Zephyr Wetherley departed.

The brother and sister laughed.

“Sensible fellow,” said Abel; “he flies the grandpas.”

“How did you come here, you wretch!” asked Fanny, “listening to my secrets?”

“My dear, I arrived this morning, only half an hour ago.  I let myself in by my pass-key, and, hearing voices in the parlor, I went round by the conservatory to spy out the land.  Then and there I beheld this spectacle.  Fanny, you’re wonderful.”

Miss Newt made a demure courtesy.

“So you’ve really come home for good?  Well, Abel, I’m glad.  Now you’re here I shall have a man of my own to attend me next winter.  And there’s to be the handsome Boston bride here, you know, next season.”

“Who is she?” said Abel, laughing, sinking into a chair.  “Mother wrote me you said that all Boston girls are dowdy.  Who is the dowdy of next winter?”

“Mrs. Alfred Dinks,” replied Fanny, carelessly, but looking with her keenest glance at Abel.

He, sprang up and began to say something; but his sister’s eye arrested him.

“Oh yes,” said he, hurriedly—­“Dinks, I’ve heard about Alfred Dinks.  What a devil of a name!”

“Come, dear, you’d better go up stairs and see mamma,” said Fanny; “and I’m so sorry you missed Aunt Dagon.  She was here this morning, lovely as ever.  But I think the velvet is wearing off her claws.”

Fanny Newt laughed a cold little laugh.  Abel went out of the room.

“Master Abel, then, does know Miss Hope Wayne,” said she to herself.  “He more than knows her—­he loves her—­or thinks he does.  Wouldn’t he have known if she had been engaged to her cousin?”

She pondered a little while.

“I don’t believe,” thought Miss Fanny, “that she is engaged to him.”

Miss Fanny was pleased with that thought, because she meant to be engaged to him herself, if it proved to be true, as every body declared, that he had ten or fifteen thousand a year.

CHAPTER XIV.

A NEW YORK MERCHANT.

Mr. Lawrence Newt, the brother of Boniface, sat in his office.  It was upon South Street, and the windows looked out upon the shipping in the East River—­upon the ferry-boats incessantly crossing—­upon the lofty city of Brooklyn opposite, with its spires.  He heard the sailors sing—­the oaths of the stevedores—­the bustle of the carts, and the hum and scuffle of the passers-by.  As he sat at his table he saw the ships haul into the stream—­the little steamers that puffed alongside bringing the passengers; then, if the wind were not fair, pulling and shoving the huge hulks into a space large enough for them to manage themselves in.

Sometimes he watched the parting of passengers at the wharf when the wind was fair, and the ship could sail from her berth.  The vast sails were slowly unfurled, were shaken out, hung for a few moments, then shook lazily, then filled round and full with the gentle, steady wind.  Mr. Lawrence Newt laughed as he watched, for he thought of fine ladies taking their hair out of curl-papers, and patting and smoothing and rolling it upon little sticks and over little fingers until the curls stood round and full, and ready for action.