s, and
I am very sorry. But, ma'am, I hope you won't--ch--ch--I mean, won't--"

That unlucky "ma'am" had choked all his other words. Hope was so lofty
and splendid in his eyes as she stood before him that he was impressed
with a kind of awe. But the moment he had spoken to her as if he were
only a little boy and she a woman, he was utterly confused. He staggered
and stumbled in his sentence until Hope graciously said,

"I blame nobody."

But poor Gabriel's speech was gone. His mouth was parched and his mind
dry. He could not think of a word to say; and, twisting and fumbling his
cap, did not know how to go.

"There, Miss Wayne!" suddenly said a voice at the door.

Hope and Gabriel turned at the same moment, and beheld Abel Newt entering
the room gayly, with a sketch in his hand. He nodded to Gabriel without
speaking, but went directly to Hope and showed her the drawing.

"There, that will do for a beginning, will it not?"

It was a bold, dashing sketch. The pine-trees, the windows, the
piazzas--yes, she saw them all. They had a new charm in her eyes.

"That tree comes a little nearer that window," said she.

"How do you know it does?" he replied. "You, who only draw from books?"

"I think I ought to know the tree that I see every day at my own window!"

"Oh! that is your window!"

Gabriel was confounded at this sudden incursion and apparent resumption
of a previous conversation. As he ran up the avenue he had not remarked
Abel sketching on the lawn. But Abel, sketching on the lawn, had observed
Gabriel running up the avenue, and therefore happened in to ask Miss
Wayne's opinion of his drawing. He chatted merrily on:

"Why, there's your grandpapa when he was a little grand-baby and had an
old grandpapa in his turn," said he, pointing at the portrait he had
remarked upon his previous visit in that parlor. "What a funny little old
fellow! Let me see. Gracious! 'twas before the Revolution. Ah! now, if he
could only speak and tell us just what he saw in the room where they were
painting him--what he had for breakfast, for instance--what those dear
little ridiculous waistcoats, with all their flowery embroidery, cost a
yard, say--yes, yes, and what book that is--and who gave him the hoop--"

He rattled on. Never in Hope's lifetime had such sounds of gay speech
been heard in that well-arranged and well-behaved parlor. They seemed to
light it up. The rapid talk bubbled like music.

"Hoop and book--book and hoop!