r," said I, addressing myself,
"she's what you may call a sweet pretty girl."

I addressed the same remark to Miss Joey that night at tea.

"The girl," said she, "is an innocent little country-girl. She's got a
good skin and a handsome set of teeth. But there's no need of her
findin' out her good looks, unless you men-folks put her up to 't."

This I of course took to myself, David being out of the question.

An innocent little country-girl! And so she was. She brought to mind
damask roses, and apple-blossoms, and red rosebuds, and modest violets,
and stars and sunbeams, and all the freshness and sweetness of early
morning in the country. A delicious little innocent country-girl! Poor
David! who could have guessed that you were to be the means of letting
in upon her benighted mind the secret of her own beauty?

Anybody who has travelled in the country has noticed two kinds of
country-girls. The first are green-looking and brazen-faced, staring at
you like great yellow buttercups, and are always ready to tell all they
know. The others are shy. They look up at you modestly, with their blue
or their brown eyes, and answer your questions in few words. Of this
last kind was Mary Ellen. She looked up with brown eyes,--not dark
brown, but light,--hazel, perhaps.

And those brown, or hazel, or grayish eyes looked up to some
purpose,--as David, if he had had the gift of speech, might have
testified. But a man may tell a good deal and never use his tongue at
all. The eyes, for instance, or even the cheeks, can talk, and are full
as likely not to tell lies.

It might have been two months, perhaps, after the other half was let,
that I heard Mrs. Lane say one day,--

"Joey, there's an alteration in David."

"For better or wuss?" calmly inquired that maiden.

I did not hear the reply, but I had seen the alteration. In fact, I had
noticed it from the beginning, and had come to the conclusion that the
mischief was done the first day,--that his heart somehow got a twist in
the screwing-up of the bed-cord,--that it received every one of the
blows which those white arms were aiming at the insensible wood.

It was a case which had vastly interested me. I mean that it was quite
in my line, detecting a man's secret in his countenance. I was glad of
the practice.

Mary Ellen knew, too; and yet she had received no help from the
profession. Only an innocent little country-girl! 'Twas her natural
penetration. What a pity women can'