uty. I have not yet seen those English beauties
of which so much is said in their own romances, but whom the
young men from New York and San Francisco who make their way to
Gladstonopolis do not seem to admire very much. Eva was perfect in
symmetry, in features, in complexion, and in simplicity of manners.
All languages are the same to her; but that accomplishment has become
so common in Britannula that but little is thought of it. I do not
know whether she ravished our ears most with the old-fashioned piano
and the nearly obsolete violin, or with the modern mousometor, or the
more perfect melpomeneon. It was wonderful to hear the way with which
she expressed herself at the meeting held about the rising buildings
of the college when she was only sixteen. But I think she touched me
most with just a roly-poly pudding which she made with her own fair
hands for our dinner one Sunday at Little Christchurch. And once when
I saw her by chance take a kiss from her lover behind the door, I
felt that it was a pity indeed that a man should ever become old.
Perhaps, however, in the eyes of some her brightest charm lay in the
wealth which her father possessed. His sheep had greatly increased in
number; the valleys were filled with his cattle; and he could always
sell his salmon for half-a-crown a pound and his pheasants for
seven-and-sixpence a brace. Everything had thriven with Crasweller,
and everything must belong to Eva as soon as he should have been led
into the college. Eva's mother was now dead, and no other child had
been born. Crasweller had also embarked his money largely in the wool
trade, and had become a sleeping-partner in the house of Grundle &
Grabbe. He was an older man by ten years than either of his partners,
but yet Grundle's eldest son Abraham was older than Eva when
Crasweller lent his money to the firm. It was soon known who was to
be the happiest man in the empire. It was young Abraham, by whom Eva
was kissed behind the door that Sunday when we ate the roly-poly
pudding. Then she came into the room, and, with her eyes raised to
heaven, and with a halo of glory almost round her head as she poured
forth her voice, she touched the mousometor, and gave us the Old
Hundredth psalm.

She was a fine girl at all points, and had been quite alive to the
dawn of the Fixed Period system. But at this time, on the memorable
occasion of the eating of that dinner, it first began to strike me
that my friend Crasweller was get