ourage to say that
her heart can be bought. She is ready in her innocence, too, to sell
it, just as the Indians sell a great territory for a few glass beads or
bright buttons. And why should not I make the acquisition in the very
spirit of a new settler? It was I discovered this lone island of the
sea; it was I first landed on this unknown shore; why not claim a
sovereignty so cheaply established?" I put the question arithmetically
before me: Given, a young girl, totally new to life and its seductions,
deeply impressed with the value of wealth, to find the measure of
venality in a well-brought-up young lady, educated at Clapham, and
finished at Boulogne-sur-Mer. I expressed it thus: D-y=T+a?, or an
unknown quantity.

"What strange marks are you drawing there?" cried she, as I made these
figures on the slate.

"A caprice," said I, in some confusion.

"No," said she; "I know better. It was a charm. Tell truth,--it was a
charm."

"A charm, dearest; but for what?"

"_I_ know," said she, shaking her head and laughing, with a sort of
wicked drollery.

"_You_ know! Impossible, child."

"Yes," she said with great gravity, while she swept her hand, across the
slate and erased all the figures. "Yes _I_ know, and I 'll not permit
it."

"But what, in Heaven's name, is trotting through your head, Catinka? You
have not the vaguest idea of what those signs meant."

"Yes," she said, even more solemnly than before. "I know it all. You
mean to steal away my heart in spite of me, and you are going to do it
with a charm."

"And what success shall I have, Catinka?"

"Oh, do not ask me," said she, in a tone of touching misery. "I feel it
very sore here." And she pressed her hand to her side. "Ah me," sighed
she, "if there were only pearls!"

The ecstasy her first few words gave me was terribly routed by this vile
conclusion, and I started abruptly, and in an angry voice, said, "Let us
go on; Vaterchen will fear we are lost."

"And all this gold; what shall I do with it?" cried she.

"What you will. Throw it into the well if you like," said I, angrily;
for in good sooth I was out of temper with her and myself and all
mankind.

"Nay," said she, mildly, "it is yours; but I will carry it for you if it
weary you."

I might have felt rebuked by the submissive gentleness of her words;
indeed, I know not how it was that they did not so move me, and I walked
on in front of her, heedless of her entreaties that I should wait till