I been a
man, or had my dear Colonel been a man whom it was in the power of a
woman's art to raise one step higher in that metaphorical ladder which
is not the ladder of the angels, why, then--what then? No matter! I
am contented. I transfer my ambition to Jane. Do you not think her
handsome?"

"There can be no doubt of that," said I, carelessly and naturally.

"I have settled Jane's lot in my own mind," resumed Mrs. Poyntz,
striking firm into another row of knitting. "She will marry a country
gentleman of large estate. He will go into parliament. She will study
his advancement as I study Poyntz's comfort. If he be clever, she will
help to make him a minister; if he be not clever, his wealth will make
her a personage, and lift him into a personage's husband. And, now that
you see I have no matrimonial designs on you, Allen Fenwick, think if it
will be worth while to confide in me. Possibly I may be useful--"

"I know not how to thank you; but, as yet, I have nothing to confide."

While thus saying, I turned my eyes towards the open window beside which
I sat. It was a beautiful soft night, the May moon in all her splendour.
The town stretched, far and wide, below with all its numberless
lights,--below, but somewhat distant; an intervening space was covered,
here, by the broad quadrangle (in the midst of which stood, massive and
lonely, the grand old church), and, there, by the gardens and scattered
cottages or mansions that clothed the sides of the hill.

"Is not that house," I said, after a short pause, "yonder with the three
gables, the one in which--in which poor Dr. Lloyd lived--Abbots' House?"

I spoke abruptly, as if to intimate my desire to change the subject of
conversation. My hostess stopped her knitting, half rose, looked forth.

"Yes. But what a lovely night! How is it that the moon blends into
harmony things of which the sun only marks the contrast? That stately
old church tower, gray with its thousand years, those vulgar tile-roofs
and chimney-pots raw in the freshness of yesterday,--now, under the
moonlight, all melt into one indivisible charm!"

As my hostess thus spoke, she had left her seat, taking her work with
her, and passed from the window into the balcony. It was not often that
Mrs. Poyntz condescended to admit what is called "sentiment" into
the range of her sharp, practical, worldly talk; but she did so at
times,--always, when she did, giving me the notion of an intellect much
too compre