he sleepy outposts of city street-cars, just under the levee at the
edge of that green oak-dotted plain where a certain man, as gentle,
shy, and unworldly as our engineer friend thought Claude to be, was
raising the vast buildings of the next year's Universal Exposition.

But all this explains only why Claude did not, to his knowledge, see
Marguerite by accident. Yet by intention! Why not by intention?
First, there was his fear of sinning against his father's love. That
alone might have failed to hold him back; but, second, there was his
helplessness. Love made Tarbox, if any thing were needed to make him,
brave; it made Claude a coward. And third, there was that helpless
terror of society in general, of which we have heard his friend talk.
I have seen a strong horse sink trembling to the earth at the beating
of an empty drum. Claude looked with amazed despair at a man's ability
to overtake a pretty girl acquaintance in Canal Street, and walk and
talk with her. He often asked himself how he had ever been a moment at
his ease those November evenings in the tavern's back-parlor at
Vermilionville. It was because he had a task there; sociality was not
the business of the hour.

And now I have something else to confess about Claude; something
mortifying in the extreme. For you see the poverty of all these
explanations. Their very multitude makes them weak. "Many fires cannot
quench love;" what was the real matter? I will tell.

Claude's love was a deep sentiment. He had never allowed it to assert
itself as a passion. The most he would allow it to be was a yearning.
It was scarcely personal. While he was with Marguerite, in the inn,
his diffidence alone was enough to hide from him the impression she
was making on his heart. In all their intercourse he had scarcely
twice looked her full in the face. Afterward she had simply become in
memory the exponent of an ideal. He found himself often, now, asking
himself, why are my eyes always looking for her? Should I actually
know her, were I to see her on this sidewalk, or in this street-car?
And while still asking himself these silent questions, what does he do
one day but fall--to all intents and purposes, at least--fall in
love--pell-mell--up to the eyebrows--with another girl!

Do you remember Uncle Remus's story of Brer Rabbit with the bucket of
honey inverted on him? It was the same way with Claude. "He wa'n't des
only bedobble wid it, he wuz des kiver'd." It happened thus: A