very conscious people, they recognized in themselves some sense
of this, and presently drolled it away, in the opulence of a time
when every moment brought some beautiful dream, and the soul could be
prodigal of its bliss.

"I think if I had the naming of the animals over again, this morning,
I shouldn't call snakes 'snakes'; should you, Eve?" laughed Basil in
intricate acknowledgment of his happiness.

"O no, Adam; we'd look out all the most graceful euphemisms in the
newspapers, and we wouldn't hurt the feelings of a spider."

II. MIDSUMMER-DAY'S DREAM.

They had waited to see Leonard, in order that they might learn better
how to find his house in the country; and now, when they came in upon
him at nine o'clock, he welcomed them with all his friendly heart. He
rose from the pile of morning's letters to which he had but just sat
down; he placed them the easiest chairs; he made a feint of its not
being a busy hour with him, and would have had them look upon his
office, which was still damp and odorous from the porter's broom, as a
kind of down-town parlor; but after they had briefly accounted to his
amazement for their appearance then and there, and Isabel had boasted of
the original fashion in which they had that morning seen New York, they
took pity on him, and bade him adieu till evening.

They crossed from Broadway to the noisome street by the ferry, and in
a little while had taken their places in the train on the other side of
the water.

"Don't tell me, Basil," said Isabel, "that Leonard travels fifty miles
every day by rail going to and from his work!"

"I must, dearest, if I would be truthful."

"Then, darling, there are worse things in this world than living up at
the South End, aren't there?" And in agreement upon Boston as a place of
the greatest natural advantages, as well as all acquirable merits, with
after talk that need not be recorded, they arrived in the best humor at
the little country station near which the Leonards dwelt.

I must inevitably follow Mrs. Isabel thither, though I do it at the cost
of the reader, who suspects the excitements which a long description of
the movement would delay. The ladies were very old friends, and they had
not met since Isabel's return from Europe and renewal of her engagement.
Upon the news of this, Mrs. Leonard had swallowed with surprising ease
all that she had said in blame of Basil's conduct during the rupture,
and exacted a promise from her frien