't help being struck with her, for she is at once rounded and fine
in feature, looks calm, as blondes are apt to, and as if she might run
wild, if she were trifled with. It is just as I knew it would be,--and
anybody can see that our young Marylander will be dead in love with her
in a week.

Then if that little man would only turn out immensely rich and have the
good-nature to die and leave them all his money, it would be as nice as
a three-volume novel.

The Little Gentleman is in a flurry, I suspect, with the excitement
of having such a charming neighbor next him. I judge so mainly by his
silence and by a certain rapt and serious look on his face, as if he
were thinking of something that had happened, or that might happen, or
that ought to happen,--or how beautiful her young life looked, or how
hardly Nature had dealt with him, or something which struck him silent,
at any rate. I made several conversational openings for him, but he did
not fire up as he often does. I even went so far as to indulge in, a
fling at the State House, which, as we all know, is in truth a very
imposing structure, covering less ground than St. Peter's, but of
similar general effect. The little man looked up, but did not reply to
my taunt. He said to the young lady, however, that the State House was
the Parthenon of our Acropolis, which seemed to please her, for she
smiled, and he reddened a little,--so I thought. I don't think it right
to watch persons who are the subjects of special infirmity,--but we all
do it.

I see that they have crowded the chairs a little at that end of
the table, to make room for another newcomer of the lady sort. A
well-mounted, middle-aged preparation, wearing her hair without a
cap, --pretty wide in the parting, though,--contours vaguely hinted,
--features very quiet,--says little as yet, but seems to keep her eye on
the young lady, as if having some responsibility for her My record is
a blank for some days after this. In the mean time I have contrived to
make out the person and the story of our young lady, who, according to
appearances, ought to furnish us a heroine for a boarding-house romance
before a year is out. It is very curious that she should prove connected
with a person many of us have heard of. Yet, curious as it is, I have
been a hundred times struck with the circumstance that the most remote
facts are constantly striking each other; just as vessels starting from
ports thousands of miles apart pass