an's affections, (not yours, "Astarte," nor yours,
"Viola,")--who knows that men are rejected by women every day because
they, the men, love them, and are accepted every day because they do not,
and therefore can study the arts of pleasing,--a man of sense, when he
finds he has established his second parallel too soon, retires quietly to
his first, and begins working on his covered ways again. The whole art
of love may be read in any Encyclopaedia under the title Fortification,
where the terms just used are explained. After the little adventure of
the necklace, Dick retreated at once to his first parallel. Elsie loved
riding,--and would go off with him on a gallop now and then. He was a
master of all those strange Indian horseback-feats which shame the tricks
of the circus-riders, and used to astonish and almost amuse her sometimes
by disappearing from his saddle, like a phantom horseman lying flat
against the side of the bounding creature that bore him, as if he were a
hunting leopard with his claws in the horse's flank and flattening
himself out against his heaving ribs. Elsie knew a little Spanish too,
which she had learned from the young person who had taught her dancing,
and Dick enlarged her vocabulary with a few soft phrases, and would sing
her a song sometimes, touching the air upon an ancient-looking guitar
they had found with the ghostly things in the garret,--a quaint old
instrument, marked E. M. on the back, and supposed to have belonged to a
certain Elizabeth Mascarene, before mentioned in connection with a work
of art,--a fair, dowerless lady, who smiled and sung and faded away,
unwedded, a hundred years ago, as dowerless ladies, not a few, are
smiling and singing and fading now,--God grant each of them His
love,--and one human heart as its interpreter!

As for school, Elsie went or stayed away as she liked. Sometimes, when
they thought she was at her desk in the great schoolroom, she would be on
The Mountain,--alone always. Dick wanted to go with her, but she would
never let him. Once, when she had followed the zigzag path a little way
up, she looked back and caught a glimpse of him following her. She
turned and passed him without a word, but giving him a look which seemed
to make the scars on his wrist tingle, went to her room, where she locked
herself up, and did not come out again till evening, Old Sophy having
brought her food, and set it down, not speaking, but looking into her
eyes inquiring