tty verses too, though I say it who shouldn't say it." And he hummed
a tune which Blanche had put to some verses of his own. "Ah! what a
fine night! How jolly a cigar is at night! How pretty that little Saxon
church looks in the moonlight! I wonder what old Warrington's doing?
Yes, she's a dayvlish nice little thing, as my uncle says."

"Oh, heavenly!" Here broke out a voice from a clematis-covered casement
near--a girl's voice: it was the voice of the author of 'Mes Larmes.'

Pen burst into a laugh. "Don't tell about my smoking," he said, leaning
out of his own window.

"Oh! go on! I adore it," cried the lady of 'Mes Larmes.' "Heavenly
night! heavenly, heavenly moon! but I must shut my window, and not talk
to you on account of les moeurs. How droll they are, les moeurs! Adieu."
And Pen began to sing the Goodnight to Don Basilio.

The next day they were walking in the fields together, laughing and
chattering--the gayest pair of friends. They talked about the days of
their youth, and Blanche was prettily sentimental. They talked about
Laura, dearest Laura--Blanche had loved her as a sister: was she happy
with that odd Lady Rockminster? Wouldn't she come and stay with them
at Tunbridge? Oh, what walks they would take together! What songs
they would sing--the old, old songs! Laura's voice was splendid. Did
Arthur--she must call him Arthur--remember the songs they sang in
the happy old days, now he was grown such a great man, and had such a
succes? etc. etc.

And the day after, which was enlivened with a happy ramble through the
woods to Penshurst, and a sight of that pleasant park and hall, came
that conversation with the curate which we have narrated, and which made
our young friend think more and more.

"Is she all this perfection?" he asked himself. "Has she become serious
and religious? Does she tend schools, and visit the poor? Is she kind
to her mother and brother? Yes, I am sure of that, I have seen her." And
walking with his old tutor over his little parish, and going to visit
his school, it was with inexpressible delight that Pen found Blanche
seated instructing the children, and fancied to himself how patient
she must be, how good-natured, how ingenuous, how really simple in her
tastes, and unspoiled by the world.

"And do you really like the country?" he asked her, as they walked
together.

"I should like never to see that odious city again. O Arthur--that is,
Mr.--well, Arthur, then--one's good thought