to sit opposite or by his side! Which is the better? Meanwhile there passed through Silvester's mind doubts as to whether Walter Nugent was quite trustworthy. Silvester, truthful himself, accepted as truth what any one told him; but in Nugent's stories there was almost too strong a touch of romance. 66 I don't know what to make of that fellow," he soliloquized, strolling slowly homeward, with eyes that unconsciously drunk the sunset. "Does he lie deliberately and for mere fun, or does he delude himself into believing that his impossibilities have happened, or has he been utterly hoaxed by somebody? I shall ask my father to-night or to-morrow. Not to-night though, by Aphrodite. Louisa is to be here. I mean to make love tremendously. Little Louisa has but one fault; she thinks herself older than I am. She isn't: for I've lived at least half a century since I saw her." Love's logic. CHAPTER XV. A DISAPPOINTMENT. "Off! off!' said the stranger; And away flew the light bark ILVESTER was doomed to disappoint SILV ment that evening. The parson came to dinner without Louisa. He explained, rather incoherently, that she had-probably— duty which prevented her coming. Silvia smiled mischievously to see her brother's countenance elongate. But they all went to dinner, and a capital dinner they had. You don't get moor mutton with hot laver sauce every day. The author is inhibited by publishers and critics from aristological observations, or he would here describe a good Devonshire dinner. Somewhat vaguely, not to say jesuitically, did the Reverend Arundel Saint Osyth account for his niece's absence-the fact being that he could not account for it himself. When he started from the rectory, she had not come in. He was not surprised, for Miss Louisa was rather independent, and often came in an hour too late for dinner if the rheumatic pauperism of some old woman interested her. So the Rector felt justified in putting down her absence to some parochial incident, and enjoyed his iaune dorée with sauce of red mullets' livers stewed in port wine. He would not have had much appetite had he known what was happening. It was not a particularly amusing dinner party. The Squire and his wife were as pleasant as usual, but the Rector missed his niece, and Silvester missed his sweetheart, and Silvia could not help thinking about Walter Nugent. When a little girl gets into her ticklish condition, dinner becomes an unmeaning ceremony, champagne has no taste on the palate. Of course the palate is almost as undeveloped as the brain in children of Silvia's age. Still they do like, when "in maiden meditation, fancy free," like an elderly lady whom Shakespeare deigned to flatter, the saccharine effervescence, the lymph of the lollilop. But let them be in love, or think they are in love, and the flavour goes out of everything. Doubtless it is a law of nature, and therefore wise. Still, little girls are a great nuisance at this stage, and might well be relegated to the nursery. The old lady who kept a school at Brighton, and cured love-fits by rhubarb pills and salts and senna, was wise in her generation. It hath been written : VOL. I. "Love is like a dizziness; Won't let a poor man go about his business." 13 A version for the girls might be: "Love is like a fever; Won't let a little girl laugh at her deceiver.” No, it was a dull dinner. The Squire, when he subsequently soliloquized, smoking his meerschaum alone in the book-room with a final glass of brandy and seltzer, de cided something must be wrong. The Squire could see as well as most men through a mill stone. 66 Why did not Louisa come? If she is in love with Silvester, it is very odd. Why didn't the parson know why she didn't come? Why was Silvia so silent and absent? That young minx shall tell me all about her troubles tomorrow." The Squire was the kindest of men, but he demanded from his children confidence and obedience, and knew how to obtain them. As he sat in his book-room smoking, there came a loud ring at the hall door. He rang his own bell, it being a habit of his always to |