but a few days after the dinner that the junior partner was taking
the old path that led under the tower of the fairy princess, when lo! he
met her in the way. In her eyes there was that sweet light of expectation
and happiness which illuminated all Gabriel's thoughts of her, and
persuaded him that he was the happiest and unworthiest of men.

"Where are you going, May?"

"I am going to Fanny's."

"May I go too?"

May Newt looked at him and said, gravely, "No, I am going to ask Little
Malacca to go with me."

"Oh, very well," replied Mr. Gabriel Bennet, with equal gravity.

"What splendid, melancholy eyes he has!" said May, with unusual ardor.

"Ah! you think so?"

"Of course I do, and such hair! Why, Mr. Bennet, did you ever see such
magnificent hair--"

"Oh, you like black hair?"

"And his voice--"

"Now, May--"

"Well, Sir."

"Please--"

What merry light in the fairy eyes! What dazzling splendor of love and
happiness in the face that turned to his as he laid her arm in his own!
One would have thought she, too, had been admitted a junior partner in
some most prosperous firm.

They passed along the street, which was full of people, and Gabriel and
May unconsciously looked at the crowd with new eyes and thoughts. Can it
be possible that all these people are so secretly happy as two that we
know? thought they. "All my life," said Gabriel to himself, without
knowing it, "have I been going up and down, and never imagined how much
honey there was hived away in all the hearts of which I saw only the
rough outside?" "All my life," mused May, with sweet girl-eyes, "have
I passed lovers as if they were mere men and women?" And under her veil,
where no eye could see, her cheek was flushed, and her eyes were sweeter.

They passed up Broadway and turned across to the Bowery. Crossing the
broad pavement of the busy thoroughfare, they went into a narrow street
beyond, and so toward the East River. At length they stopped before a
low, modest house near a quiet corner. A sloppy kitchen-maid stood upon
the area steps abreast of the street. A few miserable trees, pining to
death in the stone desert of the town, were boxed up along the edge of
the sidewalk. A scavenger's cart was joggling along, and a little behind,
a ragman's wagon with a string of jangling bells. The smell of the sewer
was the chief odor, and the long lines of low, red brick houses, with
wooden steps and balustrades, and the blinds closed, completed