n, with a smile, "did you
not make a mistake there, Miss Redbud?"

"No, sir--I meant it," she said, raising her eyes simply to his
own. "I think old-fashioned things are very often prettier and more
pleasant than new ones. Don't you?"

"I do!" cried Fanny; "I'm sure my great grandmother's diamond
breastpin is much handsomer than this horrid thing!"

And the young lady tore the pinchbeck jewel from her neck.

Mr. Ashley laughed.

"There's your consistency," he said; "just now you thought nothing
could be finer."

Miss Fanny vehemently opposed this view of her character at great
length, and with extraordinary subtilty. We regret that the exigencies
of our narrative render it impossible for us to follow her--we can
only state that the result, as on all such occasions, was the total
defeat of the cavalier. Mr. Ralph Ashley several times stated his
willingness to subscribe to any views, opinions or conclusions which
Miss Fanny desired him to, and finally placed his fingers in his ears.

Fanny greeted this manoeuvre with a sudden blow in the laugher's face,
from her bouquet; and Redbud, forgetting her disquietude, laughed
gaily at the merry cousins.

So they entered, and met the bevy of young school girls on the
portico, with whom Mr. Ralph Ashley, in some manner, became
instantaneously popular: perhaps partly on account of the grotesque
presents he scattered among them, with his gay, joyous laughter. After
thus making himself generally agreeable, he looked at the setting sun,
and said he must go. He would, however, soon return, he said, to see
his dearest Fanny, the delight of his existence. And having made
this pleasant speech, he went away on his elegant horse, laughing,
good-humored, and altogether a very pleasing, graceful-looking
cavalier, as the red sunset showered upon his rich apparel and his
slender charger all its wealth of ruddy, golden light.

And as he went on thus, so gallant, in the bravery of youth and joy,
a young lady, sitting on the sun-lit portico, followed him with her
eyes; and leaning her fine brow, with its ebon curls, upon her hand,
mused with a sigh and a smile. And when the cavalier turned round as
the trees swallowed him, and waved his hat, with its fine feather, in
the golden light, Miss Fanny murmured--"Really, I think--Ralph--has
very much--improved!" Which seemed to be a very afflicting
circumstance to Miss Fanny, inasmuch as she uttered a deep sigh.

Meanwhile our little Redbud g