s, when her eyes flashed, and her ears were set back, and she
unsheathed her horrid claws, and lashed her sides, and growled with all
the appalling fee-faw-fum of the jungle,--flog her back into her
corner, with nought more formidable than a lady's riding-whip, dainty,
slender, and sharp. But Withers administered the chastisement with such
devilish grace that it was unperceived, save by the quick, shrewd
Adelaide perhaps, who perceived everything,--but never _saw_, nor ever
spoke. If you could have beheld the lips and the eyes of Madeline, on
such occasions, you would have cursed this Philip Withers, or beaten
him to her feet.

Between Withers and Adelaide the relations were plainer; indeed, before
the small Splurge set they appeared as avowed lovers. Toward "Addy"
Withers was all elegant devotion and gracious gallantry, knight-like in
his chivalric and debonair devoir.

For Withers Addy was, openly, all deference and tenderly wistful
solicitude, but in secret not all security and exultation. Even while
it seemed high triumph in her heart's camp, her well-drilled eyes and
ears were still on guard, and her hidden thoughts lay upon their arms.

Still it wore the aspect of a lyric match, and the hearts of humbler
Hendrik lovers set it to music.

"For other guests," Withers seemed to say,

"I wile the hours with tale or song,
Or web of fancy, fringed with careless rhyme;
But how to find a fitting lay for thee,
Who hast the harmonies of every time?"

And Addy _looked_,

"Thou art to me most like a royal guest,
Whose travels bring him to some humble roof,
Where simple rustics spread their festal fare,
And, blushing, own it is not good enough.

"Bethink thee, then, whene'er thou com'st to me,
From high emprise and noble toil to rest,
My thoughts are weak and trivial, matched with thine,
But the poor mansion offers thee its best."

So Mrs. Marmaduke exalted her horn and exceedingly magnified her
manoeuvring office. On the strength of it, she treated herself to
profuse felicitations and fished among her neighbors for more.

CHAPTER II.

And now I will let you into a secret, which, according to the received
rules for story-construction, should be barred against you yet a little
longer. I will fling it wide open at once, instead of holding it ajar
and admitting you edgewise, as it were, one conjecture at a time.

Miss Wimple had a lover;--she had had him since six months