aby had still said
'um, um,' what would it then have meant?"

"Plainly this: 'that is not a nice apple, and I would not like to have
any.'"

"That is perfectly satisfactory," said Ralph;"'um, um,' expresses
either the desire to possess a sweet apple, or the objection to a sour
one. I have heard of delicate shades of language before, but this is
the sublimity thereof."

And Ralph laughed.

"I never saw such a person," said Fanny, pouting.

"By the bye," said Ralph.

"Well, sir?"

"What was there so interesting in the toes?"

"They were lovely."

"Anything else?"

"Beautiful."

"That all? Come, now, tell me the charm in those feet which you young
ladies designated, I remember, as 'teensy,' and expressed your desire
to 'tiss.' Shocking perversion of the king's English--and in honor of
nothing but two dirty little feet!" said Ralph.

The storm which was visited upon Ralph's unhappy head for this
barbarous criticism was dreadful. Fanny declared, in express terms,
that he was a monster, an ogre, and with a stone in his breast instead
of a heart. To which Mr. Ralph replied, that the best writers of
ancient and modern times had nowhere designated as a monster the man
who was not in raptures at the sight of babies;--whereupon Miss Fanny
declared her disregard of writers in general, and her preference for
babies--at which stage of the discussion Ralph began to whistle.

Why not catch the laughter of those youthful lips, and tell how
the young men and maidens amused themselves that fine autumn day?
Everything innocent and fresh is beautiful--and there are eyes which
shine more brightly than the sun, voices which make a softer music
than the breezes of October in the laughing trees. Redbud's face and
voice had this innocence and joy in it--there was pleasure in the very
sound of it; and such a delicate kind of light in the soft eyes, that
as they went, the young men felt more pure, and bowed to her, as
something better than themselves--of higher nature.

The light of Fanny's eyes was more brilliant; but Redbud's were of
such softness that you forgot all else in gazing at them--lost your
heart, looking into their lucid depths of liquid light.

One heart was irremediably lost long since, and, gone away into the
possession of the young lady. This was Verty's; and as they went
along he gazed so tenderly at the young girl, that more than once
she blushed, and suffered the long lashes to fall down upon her rosy
chee