On the principle already mentioned, his agitation reassured her.

“Don’t try to explain it now,—­it may get Billy a scolding.  Are there any but intimate family friends here this evening?”

“No—­I believe—­no—­I’m sure,” replied Daniel, collecting his faculties.

“Then I don’t mind what they think.  Perhaps they’ll suppose we’ve known each other long; but we’ll arrange it by-and-by.  They’ll think the more of it the longer we stay out here,—­hear them laugh!  I must run back now.  I’ll send you somebody.”

A round of juvenile applause greeted her as she hurried into the parlor, and a number of grown people smiled quite musically.  Her quick woman-wit showed her how to retaliate and divide the embarrassment of the occasion.  As she passed me she said in an undertone,—­“Answer quick!  Who’s that fat lady on the sofa, that laughs so loud?”

“Mrs. Cromwell Craggs,” said I, as quietly.

Miss Pilgrim made a satirically low courtesy, and spoke in a modest but distinct voice,—­“I really must be excused for asking.  I’m a stranger, you know; but is there such a lady here as Mrs. Craggs,—­Mrs. Cromwell Craggs?  For if so, the present doorkeeper would like to see Mrs. Cromwell Craggs.”

Then came the turn of the fat lady to be laughed at; but out she had to go and get kissed like the rest of us.

Before the close of the evening, Billy was made as jealous as his parents and I were surprised to see Daniel in close conversation with Miss Pilgrim among the geraniums and fuschias of the conservatory.  “A regular flirtation,” said Billy, somewhat indignantly.  The conclusion they arrived at was, that after all no great harm had been done, and that the dear little fellow ought not to be peached on for his fun.  If I had known at the time how easily they forgave him, I should have suspected that the offence Billy had led Daniel into committing was not unlikely to be repeated on the offender’s own account; but so much as I could see showed me that the ice was broken....

—­Little Brother, and Other Genre Pictures.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

(BORN, 1836.)

* * * * *

A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE.

I.

At five o’clock in the morning of the tenth of July, 1860, the front door of a certain house on Anchor Street, in the ancient seaport town of Rivermouth, might have been observed to open with great caution.  This door, as the least imaginative reader may easily conjecture, did not open itself.  It was opened by Miss Margaret Callaghan, who immediately closed it softly behind her, paused for a few seconds with an embarrassed air on the stone step, and then, throwing a furtive glance up at the second-story windows, passed hastily down the street towards the river, keeping close to the fences and garden walls on her left.