ly moulded the letter that lay in
her lap, so that the address was no longer visible to the new-comer.

(Small secrecy, verging on deceit, you are bred in woman's bones!)

This blushing and averted cheek is one of those equivocal receptions
that have puzzled many a sensible man. It is a sign of coy love; it is a
sign of gentle aversion; _our_ mode of interpreting it is simple and
judicious: whichever it happens to be, we go and take it for the other.

The brisk, bold wooer that now engaged Kate Peyton was not the man to be
dashed by a woman's coyness. Handsome, daring, good-humored, and vain,
he had everything in his favor but his novelty.

* * * * *

Look at Kate! her eye lingers wistfully on that disconsolate horseman
whose every step takes him farther from her; but George has her ear, and
draws closer and closer to it, and pours love's mellow murmurs into it.

He told her he had made the grand tour, and seen the beauties of every
land, but none like her; other ladies had certainly pleased his eye for
a moment, but she alone had conquered his heart. He said many charming
things to her, such as Griffith Gaunt had never said. Amongst the rest,
he assured her the beauty of her person would not alone have fascinated
him so deeply; but he had seen the beauty of her mind in those eyes of
hers, that seemed not eyes, but souls; and begging her pardon for his
presumption, he aspired to wed her mind.

Such ideas had often risen in Kate's own mind; but to hear them from a
man was new. She looked askant through the window at the lessening
Griffith, and thought "how the grand tour improves a man!" and said, as
coldly as she could,--

"I esteem you, Sir, and cannot but be flattered by sentiments so
superior to those I am used to hear; but let this go no farther. I shall
never marry now."

Instead of being angry at this, or telling her she wanted to marry
somebody else, as the injudicious Griffith had done, young Neville had
the address to treat it as an excellent jest, and drew such comical
pictures of all the old maids in the neighborhood that she could not
help smiling.

But the moment she smiled, the inflammable George made hot love to her
again. Then she besought him to leave her, piteously. Then he said,
cheerfully, he would leave her as soon as ever she had promised to be
his. At that she turned sullen and haughty, and looked through the
window and took no notice of him whatever. Then