use--"

"Love, for instance," suggested Bart.

"Yes, love, for instance. I declare, Mr. Ridgeley, you think as a
woman."

"Do women really think? I thought their minds were so clear and
strong that thought was unnecessary, and they were always blest with
intuitions."

"Well, sir, some of them are obliged to think--when they want to be
understood by men, who don't have intuitions, and can't go at all
without something to hold up by--and a woman would think, perhaps,
that if Sartliff could fall in love--"

"And if he can't he isn't worth the saving," interjected Bart.

"Exactly; and if he could, that through its medium he might be brought
back to a healthy frame of mind, or a healthy walk of mind. There,
Mr. Ridgeley, I have got out with that, though rather limpingly, after
all."

"And a forcible case you have made. Here is a man crazy about Nature;
you propose as a cure for that, to make him mad about a woman. And
what next?"

"Well, love is human--or inhuman," said Miss Giddings; "if the former,
marriage is the specific; if the latter, his lady-love might get lost
in a wood, you know."

"Yes, I see. Poor Sartliff had better remain where he is, winking and
blinking for the lights of Nature," said Bart.

"I remember," interposed Ida, "that he and your brother, among the
matters they used to discuss, disagreed in their estimate of authors.
Sartliff could never endure N.P. Willis, for instance."

"A sign," said Miss Giddings, "that he was sane then, at least.
Willis, in Europe, is called the poet's lap-dog, with his ringlets and
Lady Blessingtons."

"I believe he had the pluck to meet Captain Marryatt," said Bart.

"Was that particularly creditable?" asked Miss Giddings.

"Well, poets' lap-dogs don't fight duels, much; and Miss Giddings, do
you think a lap-dog could have written this?" And taking up a volume
of Willis, he turned from them and read "Hagar." As he read, he seemed
possessed with the power and pathos of the piece, and his deep voice
trembled under its burthen. At the end, he laid the book down, and
walked to a window while his emotion subsided. His voice always had a
strange power of exciting him. After a moment's silence, Miss Giddings
said, with feeling:

"I never knew before that there was half that force and strength
in Willis. As you render it, it is almost sublime. Will you read
another?"

Taking up the book, he read "Jepthah's Daughter:" reading it with less
feeling, perhaps, but i