t all!--You needn't have been so hurried about such a trifle,
Ordeal. Give my compliments to your mother, and tell her she is quite
welcome to my name, and I hope it will be serviceable to her."

"She says she is willing to pay for the use of it, if you will tell
her what the damage will be."

"Oh! it's not worth while to speak of such a trifle I dare say she
will bring it back quite as good as when she took it away. I am no
such unneighbourly or aristocratical person as to wish to keep my
name all to myself. Tell your mother she is welcome to mine, and to
keep it as long as she likes, and not to say any thing about pay; I
may want to borrow hers, or something else, one of these days,
though, to say the truth, my neighbours _are_ apt to complain of me
as unfriendly and proud for not borrowing as much as a good neighbour
ought."

Ordeal departed, leaving Mrs. Abbot in some such condition as that of
the man who had no shadow. A rap at the door interrupted the further
discussion of the old subject, and Mr. Steadfast Dodge appeared in
answer to the permission to enter. Mr. Dodge and Mrs. Abbott were
congenial spirits, in the way of news, he living by it, and she
living on it.

"You are very welcome, Mr. Dodge," the mistress of the house
commenced; "I hear you passed the day, yesterday, up at the
Effinghamses."

"Why, yes, Mrs. Abbott, the Effinghams insisted on it, and I could
not well get over the sacrifice, after having been their shipmate so
long. Besides it is a little relief to talk French, when one has been
so long in the daily practice of it."

"I hear there is company at the house?"

"Two of our fellow-travellers, merely. An English baronet, and a
young man of whom less is known than one could wish. He is a
mysterious person, and I hate mystery, Mrs. Abbott."

"In that, then, Mr. Dodge, you and I are alike. I think every thing
should be known. Indeed, that is not a free country in which there
are any secrets. I keep nothing from my neighbours, and, to own the
truth, I do not like my neighbours to keep any thing from me."

"Then you'll hardly like the Effinghams, for I never yet met with a
more close-mouthed family. Although I was so long in the ship with
Miss Eve, I never heard her once speak of her want of appetite; of
sea-sickness, or of any thing relating to her ailings even: no? can
you imagine how close she is on the subject of the beaux; I do not
think I ever heard her use the word, or so much as a