e is so manly
and modest, so simple and true. It is really very--very--"

And so he mused, and asked and answered, and thought of Hal Battlebury
and Amy Waring together.

It seemed to him that if he were a younger man--about the age of
Battlebury, say--full of hope, and faith, and earnest endeavor--a
glowing and generous youth--it would be the very thing he should do--to
fall in love with Amy Waring. How could any man see her and not love her?
His reflections grew dreamy at this point.

"If so lovely a girl did not return the affection of such a young man, it
would be--of course, what else could it be?--it would be because she had
deliberately made up her mind that, under no conceivable circumstances
whatsoever, would she ever marry."

As he reached this satisfactory conclusion Lawrence Newt paced up and
down before the window, with his hands still buried in his pockets,
thinking of Hal Battlebury--thinking of the foreign youth with the large,
melancholy eyes pining upon a bed of pain, and reciting Petrarch's
sonnets, in the miserable room opposite--thinking also of that strange
coldness of virgin hearts which not the ardors of youth and love could
melt.

And, stopping before the window, he thought of his own boyhood--of the
first wild passion of his young heart--of the little hand he held--of
the soft darkness of eyes whose light mingled with his own--again the
palm-trees--the rushing river--when, at the very window upon which he
was unconsciously gazing, one afternoon a face appeared, with a black
silk handkerchief twisted about the head, and looking down into the
court between the houses.

Lawrence Newt stared at it without moving. Both windows were closed, nor
was the woman at the other looking toward him. He had, indeed, scarcely
seen her fully before she turned away. But he had recognized that face.
He had seen a woman he had so long thought dead. In a moment Amy Waring's
visit was explained, and a more heavenly light shone upon her character
as he thought of her.

"God bless you, Amy dear!" were the words that unconsciously stole to his
lips; and going into the office, Lawrence Newt told Thomas Tray that he
should not return that afternoon, wished his clerks good-day, and hurried
around the corner into Front Street.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

ABEL NEWT, _vice_ SLIGO MOULTRIE REMOVED.

The Plumers were at Bunker's. The gay, good-hearted Grace, full of fun
and flirtation, vowed that New York was life, a