to bed? Didn't I tell you to go and leave me here alone? In the name of
all that's idiotic and imbecile, why do you continue to shuffle about
here? Or are you trying to drive me crazy with your presence, as you
have with that wretched music-box that I've just dropped under yonder
tree? It's an hour and a half yet before the stage passes: do you think,
do you imagine for a single moment, that I can tolerate you until then,
eh? Why don't you speak? Are you asleep? You don't mean to say that you
have the audacity to add somnambulism to your other weaknesses? you're
not low enough to repeat yourself under any such weak pretext as that,
eh?"

A fit of nervous coughing ended this extraordinary exordium; and half
sitting, half leaning against the veranda, Mr. McClosky's guest turned
his face, and part of a slight elegant figure, toward his host. The
lower portion of this upturned face wore an habitual expression of
fastidious discontent, with an occasional line of physical suffering.
But the brow above was frank and critical; and a pair of dark, mirthful
eyes, sat in playful judgment over the super-sensitive mouth and its
suggestion.

"I allowed to go to bed, Ridgeway," said Mr. McClosky meekly; "but my
girl Jinny's jist got back from a little tear up at Robinson's, and
ain't inclined to turn in yet. You know what girls is. So I thought we
three would jist have a social chat together to pass away the time."

"You mendacious old hypocrite! She got back an hour ago," said Ridgeway,
"as that savage-looking escort of hers, who has been haunting the house
ever since, can testify. My belief is, that, like an enterprising idiot
as you are, you've dragged that girl out of her bed, that we might
mutually bore each other."

Mr. McClosky was too much stunned by this evidence of Ridgeway's
apparently superhuman penetration to reply. After enjoying his host's
confusion for a moment with his eyes, Ridgeway's mouth asked grimly,--

"And who is this girl, anyway?"

"Nancy's."

"Your wife's?"

"Yes. But look yar, Ridgeway," said McClosky, laying one hand
imploringly on Ridgeway's sleeve, "not a word about her to Jinny. She
thinks her mother's dead--died in Missouri. Eh!"

Ridgeway nearly rolled from the veranda in an excess of rage. "Good God!
Do you mean to say that you have been concealing from her a fact that
any day, any moment, may come to her ears? That you've been letting
her grow up in ignorance of something that by this t