he placed himself immediately in an easy-chair, and quickly passed into a deep and long-enduring sleep.  Margaret then played sacred airs on the piano, which Michael listened to with most unsacred feelings.  Fathers and mothers! put out your children’s eyes—­remove their toes—­cut off their fingers.  Whilst with a lightning look, a hair-breadth touch, they can declare, make known the love, that, having grown too big for the young heart, is panting for a vent—­you do but lose your pains whilst you stand by to seal their tremulous lips.  Speech!  Fond lovers did never need it yet—­and never shall.  What Margaret thought when the impassioned youth turned her pages over one by one, (and sometimes two and three together,) and with a hand quivering as if it had committed murder—­what she felt when his full liquid eye gazed on her, thanking her for her sweet voice, and imploring one strain more, I cannot tell, though Abraham Allcraft guessed exactly, bobbing and nodding, though he was, in slumber most profound.

Your talking and susceptible men are either at summer heat or zero.  Michael, who had been all animation and garrulity from the moment he beheld the widow until he looked his last unutterable adieus, became silent and morose as soon as he turned his back upon the cottage, and lost sight, as he believed, of the divinity for ever.  He screwed himself into a corner of the coach, and there he sat until the short homeward journey was completed, mentally chewing, with the best appetite he could, the cud of that day’s delicious feast.  Judging from his frequent sighs, and the uneasy shiftings in his seat, the repast was any thing but savoury.  Abraham said nothing.  He had but a few words to utter, and these were reserved for the quiet half hour which preceded the usual time of rest.

“Michael,” said the sire as they sat together in the evening.

“Father,” said the junior partner.

“Two hundred thousand clear.  She’ll be a duchess!”

A sigh, like a current of air, flowed through the room.

“She deserves it, Michael—­a sweet creature—­a coronet might be proud of her.  Why don’t you answer, Mike?”

“Father, she is an angel!”

“Pooh, pooh!”

“A heavenly creature!”

“I tell you what, Mike, if I were a royal duke, and you a prince, I should be proud to have her for a daughter.  But it is useless talking so.  I sadly fear that some designing rascal, without a shilling in his pocket, will get her in his clutches, and, who knows, perhaps ruin the poor creature.  What rosy lips she has!  You cunning dog, I saw you ogle them.”

“Father!”

“You did, sir—­don’t deny it; and do you think I wonder at you, Mike?  Ain’t I your father, and don’t I know the blood?  Come, go to bed, sir, and forget it all.”

“Do you, father, really think it possible that—­do you think she is in danger?  I do confess she is loveliest, the most accomplished woman in the world.  If she were to come to any harm—­if—­if”—­