Oh! my sweet, my beloved heroines—­you young vipers, when will you learn to be faultless, like other people?  You have turned my face into a peony, blushing for you at every fourth page.

David came into her apartment.  He smiled sweetly, but sadly.  “Well, it is all over.  I have offered, and been declined.”

At seeing him so quiet and resigned, Eve burst out crying.

“Don’t you cry, dear,” said David.  “It is best so.  It is almost a relief.  Anything before the suspense I was enduring.”

Then Eve, recovering her spirits by the help of anger, began to abuse Lucy for a cold-hearted, deceitful girl; but David stopped her sternly.

“Not a word against her—­not a word.  I should hate anyone that miscalled her.  She speaks well of you, Eve; why need you speak ill of her?  She and I parted friends, and friends let us be.  There is no hate can lie alongside love in a true heart.  No, let nobody speak of her at all to me.  I shan’t; my thoughts, they are my own.  ’Go to your sister,’ said she, and here I am; and I beg your pardon, Eve, for neglecting you as I have of late.”

“Oh, never mind that, David; our affection will outlast this folly many a long year.”

“Please God!  Your hand in mine, Eve, my lamb, and let us talk of ourselves and mother:  the time is short.”

They sat hand in hand, and never mentioned Lucy’s name again; and, strange to say, it was David who consoled Eve; for, now the battle was lost, her spirit seemed to have all deserted her, and she kept bursting out crying every now and then irrelevantly.

It was three in the afternoon.  David was sitting by the window, and Eve packing his chest in the same room, not to be out of his sight a minute, when suddenly he started up and cried, “There she is,” and an instinctive unreasonable joy illumined his face; the next moment his countenance fell.

The carriage passed down the street.

“I remember now,” muttered David, “I heard she was to go sailing, and Mr. Talboys was to be skipper of the boat.  Ah! well.”

“Well, let them sail, David.  It is not your business.”

“That it is not, Eve—­nobody’s less than mine.

“Eve, there is plenty of wind blowing up from the nor’east.”

“Is there?  I am afraid that will bring your ship down quick.”

“Yes; but it is not that.  I am afraid that lubber won’t think of looking to windward.”

“Nonsense about the wind; it is a beautiful day.  Come, David, it is no use lighting against nature.  Put on your hat, then, and run down to the beach, and see the last of her; only, for my sake, don’t let the others see you, to jeer you.”

“No, no.”

“And mind and be back to dinner at four.  I have got a nice roast fowl for you.”

“Ay ay.”

A little before four o’clock a sailor brought a note from David, written hastily in pencil.  It was sent up to Eve.  She read it, and clasped her hands vehemently.