tic people always are. You fretted your nurse
and your mother, your schoolmaster, your mistress, and, most of all,
yourself. A sharp sword cuts its own scabbard."

"She is gone,--left me without a word."

"Who, the Sandford woman? I always told you she would."

"No,--I left her, though not so soon as I should."

"A fine story! She jilted you."

"No,--on my honor. I'll tell you about it some other time. But Alice, my
betrothed, I have lost her forever."

"Melancholy Orpheus, how? Did you look over your shoulder, and did she
vanish into smoke?"

"It is her father who has gone over the Styx. She is in life; but she
has heard of my flirtation"--

"And served you right by leaving you. Now you will quit capering in a
lady's chamber, and go to work, a sadder and a wiser man."

"Not till I have found her. You may think me a trifler, Easelmann; but
every nerve I have is quivering with agony at the thought of the pain I
have caused her."

"Whew-w-w." said Easelmann. "Found her? Then she's eloped too! I just
left a disconsolate lover mourning over a runaway mistress. It seems to
be epidemic. There is a stampede of unhappy females. We must compress
the feet of the next generation, after the wise custom of China, so that
they can't get away."

"Whom have you seen?"

"Mr. Monroe, an acquaintance of mine."

"The same. The lady, it seems, is his cousin,--and is, or was, my
betrothed."

"And you two brave men give up, foiled by a country-girl of twenty, or
thereabouts!"

"How is one to find her?"

"What is the advantage of brains to a man who doesn't use them?
Consider; she will look for employment. She won't try to teach, it would
be useless. She is not strong enough for hard labor. She is too modest
and reserved to take a place in a shop behind a counter, where she would
be sure to be discovered. She will, therefore, be found in the employ
of some milliner, tailor, or bookbinder. How easy to go through those
establishments!"

"You give me new courage. I will get a trades-directory and begin at
once."

"To-morrow, my friend. She hasn't got a place yet, probably."

"So much the better. I shall save her the necessity."

"Go, then," said Easelmann. "You'll be happier, I suppose, to be running
your legs off, if it is to no purpose. A lover with a new impulse is
like a rocket when the fuse is lighted; he must needs go off with a
rush, or ignobly fizz out."

"Farewell, for to-day. I'll see you to-morrow," said Gr