ny lay back on her
trellised seat, and shook from the point of her slippers to the curls
on her forehead with a rush of laughter.

Redbud had recovered from her momentary confusion, and, with a
beseeching glance at Fanny, said to Verty:

"How much better you look, Verty, in this dress--indeed you look more
homelike."

"Do I?" said the happy Verty, bending his head over his shoulder to
admire the general effect; "well, I feel better."

"I should think so."

"The other clothes were like a turkey blind."

"A turkey blind?"

"Oh, you smile!--but you know, when you are lying in the blind, the
pine limbs rub against you."

"Yes."

"Then they did'nt suit me."

"No," assented Redbud.

"_I_ don't dance the minuet--so I did'nt want high-healed shoes--"

Fanny began to laugh again.

"Nor a cocked hat; the fact is, I do not know how to bow."

"See! Come, Mr. Fisher-for-Compliments!" cried Fanny.

"Oh, I never do!"

"Well, I believe you don't."

"Does anybody?"

"Yes; that odious cousin of mine--that's who does--the conceited
coxcomb!"

"Your cousin!"

"Yes, sir."

"Who is it?"

"Ralph Ashley."

"Oh--and he comes to see you--and--Miss Sallianna; she said--"

Verty's head drooped, and a shadow passed over his ingenuous face.

"There, you're thinking of Miss Sallianna again!"

"No--no," murmured Verty, gazing at Redbud with a melancholy
tenderness, and trying to understand whether there could possibly be
any foundation for Miss Sallianna's charge, that that young lady was
in love with Mr. Ralph Ashley.

"Could it be? Oh, no, no!"

"Could what be?" asked Fanny.

For once Verty was reserved.

"Nothing," he said.

But still he continued to gaze at Redbud with such sad tenderness,
that a deep color came into her cheek, and her eyes were cast down.

She turned away; and then Miss Lavinia's advice came to her mind, and
with a sorrowful cloud upon her face, she reproached herself for the
kindness of her manner to Verty, in their present interview.

"I think I'll go and gather some flowers, yonder," she said, smiling
faintly, and with a sad, kind look to Verty, in spite of all. "Fanny
and yourself can talk until I return, you know--"

"Let me go with you," said Verty, moving to her side.

Redbud hesitated.

"Come, Redbud!" said Verty, persuasively smiling.

"Oh, no! I think I would like to get the one's I prefer."

And she moved away.

Verty gazed after her with melancholy tenderness--hi