A BRACE OF BOYS

By Fitz Hugh Ludlow

From "Little Brother, "

Copyright, 1867, by Lee & Shepard

I am a bachelor uncle. That, as a mere fact, might happen to anybody;but I am a bachelor uncle by internal fitness. I am one essentially, just as I am an individual of the Caucasian division of the human race;and if, through untoward circumstances--which Heaven forbid--I shouldlose my present position, I shouldn't be surprised if you saw me outin the "Herald" under "Situations Wanted--Males. " Thanks to a marryingtendency in the rest of my family, I have now little need to advertise, all the business being thrown into my way which a single member of myprofession can attend to. I suppose you won't agree with me; but, do youknow, sometimes I think it's better than having children of one's own?People tell me that I'd feel very differently if I did have any. Perhapsso, but then, too, I might be unwise with them; I might bother theminto mischief by trying to keep them out. I might be avariciousof them--might be tempted to lock them up in my own stingy oldnursery-chest instead of paying them out to meet the bills of humanityand keep the Lord's business moving. I might forget, when I had spentmy life in fining their gold and polishing their graven-work, thatthey were still vessels for the Master's use--I only the Butler--thesweetness and the spirit with which they brimmed all belonging to Hislips who tasted bitterness for me. Then, if seeking to drain another'swine, I raised the chalice to my lips and found it gall, or felt itsteal into my old veins to poison the heart and paralyze the hand whichhad kept it from the Master, what further good would there be for me inthe world? Who doesn't know, in some friend's house, a closet containingthat worst of skeletons--the skeleton which, in becoming naked, grim andghastly, tears its way through our own flesh and blood? To be an uncleis a different kind of thing. There you have nothing of the excitementof responsibility to shake your judgment That's what makes us bacheloruncles so much better judges of what's good for children and theirfathers and mothers. We know that nobody will blame us if our nephewsunjoint their knuckles or cut their fingers off; so we give themfive-bladed knives and boxing gloves. This involves getting thanked atthe time, which is pleasant; and if no catastrophe occurs, when theyhave grown stout and ingenious, with what calm satisfaction we hearpeople say, "See what a pretty windmill the child's whittled out withUncle Ned's birthday present!" or, "That boy's grown an inch round thechest since you set him sparring!" Uncles never get stale. They don'tcome every day like parents and plain pudding; they're a sort of holidayrelative with a plummy, Christmas flavor about them. Everybodyhasn't got them; they are not so rare as the meteoric showers, but asoccasional as a particularly fine day, and whenever they come to a housethey're in the nature of a pleasant surprise. 

I meander, like a desultory, placid river of an old bachelor as I am, through the flowery mead of several nurseries. I am detained by all thelittle roots that run down into me to drink happiness, but I lingerlongest among the children of my sister Lu. 

Lu married Mr. Lovegrove. He is a merchant, retired, with a fortuneamassed by the old-fashioned slow process of trade, and regards themercantile life of the present day only as so much greed and gamblingChristianly baptized. For the ten years elapsing since he sold out ofLovegrove, Cashdown & Co. , he has devoted himself to his family and arevival of letters, taking up again the Latin and Greek which he had notlooked at since his college days, until he dismissed teas and silks toadorn a suburban villa with a spectacle of a prime Christian parent andPagan scholar. Lu is my favorite sister; Lovegrove an unusually goodarticle of brother-in-law; and I can not say that any of my niecesand nephews interest me more than their two children, Daniel and Billy, who are more unlike than words can paint them. They are far apart inpoint of years; Daniel is twenty-two, Billy eleven. I was reminded ofthis fact the other day by Billy, as he stood between my legs, scowlingat his book of sums. 

"'A boy has 85 turnips and gives his sister 80'--pretty present fora girl, isn't it?" said Billy with an air of supreme contempt. "Could_you_ stand such stuff--say?"

I put on my instructive face and answered: "Well, my dear Billy, you know that arithmetic is necessary to you if you mean to be anindustrious man and succeed in business. Suppose your parents were tolose all their property, what would become of them without a little sonwho could make money and keep accounts?"

"Oh!" said Billy with surprise. "Hasn't father got enough stamps to seehim through?"

"He has now, I hope; but people don't always keep them. Suppose theyshould go by some accident when your father was too old to make any morestamps for himself?"

"You haven't thought of brother Daniel--"

True; for nobody ever had, in connection with the active employments oflife. 

"No, Billy, " I replied; "I forgot him; but then, you know, Daniel ismore of a student than a business man, and--"

"Oh, Uncle Teddy! you don't think I meant he'd support them? I meant I'dhave to take care of father and mother and of all when they'd all got tobe old people together. Just think! I'm eleven and he's twenty-two; sohe is just twice as old as I am. How old are you?"

"Forty, Billy, last August. "

"Well, you aren't so awful old, and when I get to be as old as youDaniel will be eighty. Seth Kendall's grandfather isn't more than that, and he has to be fed with a spoon, and a nurse puts him to bed andwheels him around in a chair like a baby. That takes the stamps, _I_bet! Well, I'll tell you how I'll keep my accounts; I'll have a sticklike Robinson Crusoe, and every time I make a toadskin I'll gouge apiece out of one side of the stick, and every time I spend one I'llgouge a piece out of the other. "

"Spend a what!" said the gentle and astonished voice of my sister Lu, who, unperceived, had slipped into the room. 

"A toadskin, ma, " replied Billy, shutting up Colburn with a farewellglance of contempt. 

"Dear! dear! where does the boy learn such horrid words?"

"Why, ma! don't you know what a toadskin is? Here's one, " said Billy, drawing a dingy five-cent stamp from his pocket. "And don't I wish I hadlots of 'em!"

"Oh!" sighed his mother, "to think I should have a child so addicted toslang! How I wish he were like Daniel!"

"Well, mother, " replied Billy, "if you wanted two boys just alike you'doughter had twins. There ain't any use of my trying to be like Danielnow when he's got eleven years the start. Whoop! There's a dog-fight!Hear 'em! It's Joe Casey's dog--I know his bark!"

With these words my nephew snatched his Glengarry bonnet from the tableand bolted downstairs to see the fun. 

"What will become of him?" said Lu hopelessly; "he has no taste foranything but rough play; and then such language as he uses! Why _isn't_he like Daniel?"

"I suppose because his Maker never repeats himself. Even twins oftenpossess strongly marked individualities. Don't you think it would be agood plan to learn Billy better before you try to teach him? If you doyou'll make something as good of him as Daniel; though it will be ratherdifferent from that model. "

"Remember, Ned, that you never did like Daniel as well as you doBilly. But we all know the proverb about old maids' daughters and oldbachelors' sons. I wish you had Billy for a month--then you'd see. "

"I'm not sure that I'd do any better than you. I might err as much inother directions. But I'd try to start right by acknowledging that hewas a new problem, not to be worked without finding the value of 'x' inhis particular instance. The formula which solves one boy will no moresolve the next one than the rule of three will solve a questionin calculus--or, to rise into your sphere, than the receipt forone-two-three-four cake conduct you to a successful issue through plumpudding--"

I excel in metaphysical discussions, and was about giving furtherelaboration of my favorite idea when the door burst open. Master Billycame tumbling in with a torn jacket, a bloody nose, the trace of a fewtears in his eyes, and the mangiest of cur dogs in his hands. 

"Oh my! my!! my!!!" exclaimed his mother. 

"Don't you get scared, ma!" cried Billy, smiling a stern smile oftriumph; "I smashed the nose off him! He won't sass me again for nothing_this_ while! Uncle Teddy, d'ye know it wasn't a dogfight after all?There was that nasty good-for-nothing Joe Casey 'n' Patsy Grogan and alot of bad boys from Mackerelville; and they'd caught this poor littleki-oodle and tied a tin pot to his tail and were trying to set Joe's dogon him, though he's ten times littler--"

"You naughty, naughty boy! How did you suppose your mother'd feel to seeyou playing with those ragamuffins?"

"Yes, I _played_ 'em! I polished 'em--that's the play I did! Says I, 'Put down that poor little pup! Ain't you ashamed of yourself, PatsyGrogan?' 'I guess you don't know who I am, ' says he. That's the way theyalways say, Uncle Teddy, to make a fellow think they're some awful greatfighters. So says I again, 'Well, you put down that dog or I'll show youwho _I_ am'; and when he held on, I let him have it. Then he dropped thepup, and as I stooped to pick it up he gave me one on the bugle. "

"_Bugle!_ Oh! oh! oh!"

"The rest pitched in to help him; but I grabbed the pup, and while Iwas trying to give as good as I got--only a fellow can't do it well withonly one hand, Uncle Teddy--up came a policeman and the whole crowd ranaway. So I got the dog safe, and here he is!"

With that Billy set down his "ki-oodle, " bade farewell to every fear, and wiped his bleeding nose. The unhappy beast slunk back between thelegs of his preserver and followed him out of the room, as Lu, with anexpression of maternal despair, bore him away for the correction of hisdilapidated raiment and depraved associations. I felt such sincerepride in this young Mazzini of the dog-nation that I was vexed at Lu forbestowing on him reproof instead of congratulation; but she was not theonly conservative who fails to see a good cause and a heroic heart undera bloody nose and torn jacket. I resolved that if Billy was punished, heshould have his recompense before long in an extra holiday at Barnum'sor the Hippotheatron. 

You already have some idea of my other nephew if you have noticed thatnone of us, not even that habitual disrespecter of dignities, Billy, ever called him Dan. It would have seemed as incongruous as to callBilly William. 

He was one of those youths who never give their parents a moment'suneasiness; who never have to have their wills broken, and never forgetto put on their rubbers or take an umbrella. In boyhood he was intendedfor a missionary. Had it been possible for him to go to Greenland'sicy mountains without catching cold, or to India's coral strand withoutgetting bilious, his parents would have carried out their pleasing dreamof contributing him to the world's evangelization. Lu and Mr. Lovegrovehad no doubt that he would have been greatly blessed if he could havestood it. They brought him up in the most careful manner, and I can notrecollect the time when he was not president, secretary, or something insome society of small yet good children. He was not only an exemplar towhom all Lu's friends pointed their own nursery as the little boy whocould say most hymns and sit stillest in church, but he was a reproofeven unto his elders. One Sunday afternoon, in the Connecticut villagewhere my brother-in-law used to spend his summers, when half of thecongregation was slumbering under the combined effect of the heat, alunch of cheese and apples, and the sermon, my nephew, then aged five, sat bolt upright in the pew, winkless as a demon hearing a new candidatesuspected of shakiness on a "a card'nal p'int, " and mortified almost todeath poor old Mrs. Pringle, who, compassionating his years, had handedhim a sprig of her "meetin'-seed" over the back of the seat, by saying, in a loud and stern voice: "I don't eat things in church. "

I should have spanked the boy when I got home, but Lu, with tears in hereyes, quoted something about the mouths of babes and sucklings. 

Both she and his father always encouraged old manners in him. I thinkthey took such pride in raising a peculiarly pale boy as a gardenerdoes in getting a nice blanch on his celery, and, so long as he wasnot absolutely sick, the graver he was, the better. He was a sensitiveplant, a violet by a mossy stone, and all that sort of thing. But whenin his tenth year he had the measles, and was narrowly carried through, Lu got a scare about him. During his convalescence, reading aloud a lifeof Henry Martyn to amuse him, she found in it a picture of that youngapostle preaching to a crowd of Hindus without any boots on. An Americanmother's association of such behavior with croup and ipecac was toostrong to be counteracted by known climatic facts; and from that hour, as she never had before, Lu realized that being a missionary mightinvolve going to carry the gospel to the heathen in your stocking-feet. 

When they had decided that such a life would not do for him, histraining had almost entirely unfitted him for any other active calling. The strict propriety with which he had been brought up had resultedin weak lungs, poor digestion, sluggish circulation, and torpid liver. Moreover, he was troubled with the painfulest bashfulness which evermade a mother think her child too ethereal, or a dispassionate outsiderregard him as too flimsy, for this world. These were weights enoughto carry, even if he had not labored under that heaviest of all, awell-stored mind. 

No misnomer that last to any one who has ever frequented the AtlanticDocks, or seen storage in any large port of entry. How does a storehouselook? It's a vast, dark, cold chamber-dust an inch deep on the floor, cobwebs festooning the girders--and piled from floor to ceiling on theprinciple of getting the largest bulk into the least room, with barrels, boxes, bales, baskets, chests, crates, and carboys--merchandise of alldescription, from the rough, raw material to the most exquisite _chosesde luxe_. The inmost layers are inextricable without pulling down theouter ones. If you want a particular case of broadcloth you must clearyourself an alleyway through a hundred tierces of hams, and last week'sentry of clayed sugars is inaccessible without tumbling on your head amountain of Yankee notions. 

In my nephew's unfortunate youth such storage as this had minds. As longas the crown of his brain's arch was not crushed in by some intellectualFurman Street diaster, those stevedores of learning, the schoolmasters, kept on unloading the Rome and Athens lighters into a boy's crowdedskull, and breaking out of the hold of that colossal old junk, ThePure Mathematics, all the formulas which could be crowded into theinterstices between his Latin and Greek. At the time I introduce Billy, both Lu and her husband were much changed. They had gained a greatdeal in width of view and liberality of judgment. They read Dickens andThackeray with avidity; went now and then to the opera; proposed to letBilly take a quarter at Dod-worth's; had statues in their parlor withoutany thought of shame at their lack of petticoats, and did multitudes ofthings which, in their early married life, they would have consideredshocking. Part of this change was due to the great increase of travel, the wonderful progress in art and refinement which has enlarged thisgeneration's thought and corrected its ignorant opinions; infusingcosmopolitanism into our manners by a revolution so gradual that itssubjects were a new people before their combativeness became alarmed, yet so rapid that a man of thirty can scarcely believe his birthday, andquestions whether he has not added his life up wrong by a century or sowhen he compares his own boy-Hood with that of the present day. But agood deal of the transformation resulted from the means of gratifyingelegant tastes, the comfort, luxury, and culture which came withLovegrove's retirement on a fortune. They had mellowed on the sunnyshelves of prosperity, like every good thing which has an astringentskin when it is green. They would greatly have liked to see Daniel shinein society. Of his erudition they were proud, even to worship. The youngman never had any business, and his father never seemed to think ofgiving him any; knowing, as Billy would say, that he had stamps enoughto "see him through. " If Daniel liked, his father would have endoweda professorship in some college and have given him the chair; but thatwould have taken him away from his own room and the family physician. 

Daniel knew how much his parents wished him to make a figure in theworld, and only blamed himself for his failure, magnanimously forgettingthat they had crushed out the faculties which enable a man to mint thesmall change of everyday society in the exclusive cultivation of such asfit him for smelting its ponderous ingots. With that merciful blindnesswhich alone prevents all our lives from becoming a horror of nervelessreproach, his parents were equally unaware of their share in the harmdone him, when they ascribed to his delicate organization the fact that, at an age when love runs riot in all healthy blood, he could not see abalmoral without his cheeks rivaling the most vivid stripe in it. Theyflattered themselves that he would outgrow his bashfulness, but Danielhad no such hope, and frequently confided in me that he thought heshould never marry at all. 

About two hours after Billy's disappearance under his mother's convoy, the defender of the oppressed returned to my room bearing the dog underhis arm. His cheeks shone with washing like a pair of waxy Spitzenbergs, and other indignities had been offered him to the extent of the brushand comb. He also had a whole jacket on. 

"Well, Billy, " said I, "what are you going to do with your dog?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do. I've a great mind to be a bad, disobedient boy with him, and _not_ have my days long in the land whichthe Lord my God giveth me. "

"O Billy!"

"I can't help it. They won't be long if I don't mind ma, she says; andshe wants me to be mean, and put Crab out in the street to have Patsycatch him and tie coffee-pots to his tail. I--I--I--"

Here my small nephew dug his fist into his eye and looked down. 

I told Billy to stop where he was, and went to intercede with Lu. Shewas persuaded to entertain the angels of magnanimity and heroism in thedisguise of a young fighting character, and to accept my surety forthe behavior of his dog. Billy and I also obtained permission to go outtogether and be gone the entire afternoon. 

We put Crab on a comfortable bed of rags in an old shoe box, andthen strolled, hand-in-hand, across that most delightful of New Yorkbreathing-places, Stuyvesant Square. 

"Uncle Teddy!" exclaimed Billy with ardor; "I wish I could do somethingto show you how much I think of you for being so good to me. I don'tknow how. Would it make you happy if I was to learn a hymn for you--asmashing big hymn--six verses, long metre, and no grumbling?"

"No, Billy; you make me happy enough just by being a good boy. "

"Oh, Uncle Teddy!" replied Billy decidedly, "I'm afraid I can't do it. I've tried so often and I always make such an awful mess of it. "

"Perhaps you get discouraged too easily--"

"Well, if a savings-bank won't do it, there ain't any chance for a boy. I got father to get me a savings-bank once and began being good just ashard as ever I could for three cents a day. Every night I got 'em, Iput 'em in reg'lar, and sometimes I'd keep being good three whole daysrunning. That made a sight of money, I tell you. Then I'd do something, ma said, to kick my pail of milk over, and those nights I didn't getanything. I used to put in most of my marble and candy money, too. "

"What were you going to do with it?"

"It was for an Objeck, Uncle Teddy. That's a kind of Indian, you know, that eats people and wants the gospel. That's what pa says, anyway; Ididn't ever see one. "

"Well, didn't that make you happy--to help the poor little heathenchildren?"

"Oh, does it, Uncle Teddy? They never got a cent of it. One time I wasgood so long I got scared. I was afraid I'd never want to fly my kiteon a roof again or go anywhere where I oughtn't, or have any fun. Icouldn't see any use of going and saving my money to send out to theObjecks if it was going to make good boys of 'em. It was awful hard forme to have to be a good boy, and it must be worse for them 'cause theyain't used to it. So when there wasn't anybody upstairs I went and shooka lot of pennies out of my chimney and bought ever so much taffy andmarbles and popcorn. Was that awful mean, Uncle Teddy?"

The question involved such complications that I hesitated. Before Icould decide what to answer Billy continued:

"Ma said it was robbing the heathen, and didn't I get it? I thought ifit was robbing I'd have a cop after me. "

"What's a 'cop'?"

"That's what the boys call a policeman, Uncle Teddy; and then I shouldbe taken away and put in an awful black place underground, like JohnnyWilson when he broke Mrs. Perkins's window. I was scared, I tell you. But I didn't get anything worse than a whipping, and having my savingsbank taken away from me with all that was left in it, I haven't tried tobe good since, much. "

We now got into a Broadway stage going down, and being unable, onaccount of the noise, to converse further upon those spiritual conflictsof Billy's which so much interested me, we amused ourselves with lookingout until just as we reached the Astor House, when he asked me where wewere going. 

"Where do you guess?" said I. 

He cast a glance through the front window and his face becameirradiated. Oh, there's nothing like the simple, cheap luxury ofpleasing a child, to create sunshine enough for the chasing away of thebluest adult devils!

"We're going to Barnum's, " said Billy, involuntarily clapping his hands. 

So we were; and, much as stuck-up people pretend to look down at theplace, I frequently am. Not only so, but I always see that class largelyrepresented there when I do go. To be sure, they always make believethat they only come to amuse the children, or because their countrycousins visit them; and never fail to refer to the vulgar set one findsthere, and the fact of the animals smelling like anything but JockeyClub; yet I notice that after they've been in the hall three minutesthey're as much interested as any of the people they come to poh-poh, and only put on the high-bred air when they fancy some of their ownclass are looking at them. I boldly acknowledge that I go because I likeit. I am especially happy, to be sure, if I have a child along togo into ecstasies and give me a chance, by asking questions, for theexhibition of that fund of information which is said to be one of mychief charms in the social circle, and on several occasions has ledthat portion of the public immediately about the Happy Family into theerroneous impression that I was Mr. Barnum explaining his five hundredthousand curiosities. On the present occasion we found several visitorsof the better class in the room devoted to the Aquarium. Among these wasa young lady, apparently about nineteen, in a tight-fitting basque ofblack velvet, which showed her elegant figure to fine advantage, a skirtof garnet silk, looped up over a pretty Balmoral, and the daintiestimaginable pair of kid walking-boots. Her height was a trifle over themedium, her eyes, a soft expressive brown, shaded by masses of hairwhich exactly matched their color, and, at that rat-and-miceless day, fell in such graceful abandon as to show at once that nature was theonly maid who crimped their waves into them. Her complexion was rosywith health and sympathetic enjoyment; her mouth was faultless, her nosesensitive, her manners full of refinement, and her voice musical as awood-robin's, when she spoke to the little boy of six at her side, towhom she was revealing the palace of the great show-king. Billy andI were flattening our noses against the abode of the balloon-fish anddetermining whether he looked most like a horse-chestnut burr or a ripecucumber, when his eyes and my own simultaneously fell on the child andlady. In a moment, to Billy the balloon-fish was as though he had notbeen. 

"That's a pretty little boy!" said I. And then I asked Billy one ofthose senseless routine questions which must make children look at us, regarding the scope of our intellects very much as we look at Bushmen. 

"How would you like to play with him?"

"Him!" replied Billy scornfully, "that's his first pair of boots; seehim pull up his little breeches to show the red tops to them! But, crackey! isn't _she_ a smasher!"

After that we visited the wax figures and the sleepy snakes, the learnedseal, and the glass-blowers. Whenever we passed from one room intoanother, Billy could be caught looking anxiously to see if the prettygirl and child were coming, too. 

Time fails me to describe how Billy was lost in the astonishment at theLightning Calculator--wanted me to beg the secret of that prodigyfor him to do his sums by--finally thought he had discovered it, andresolved to keep his arm whirling all the time he studied his arithmeticlesson the next morning. Equally inadequate is it to relate in full howhe became so confused among the waxworks that he pinched the solemnestshowman's legs to see if he was real, and perplexed the beautifulCircassian to the verge of idiocy by telling her he had read all aboutthe way they sold girls like her in his geography. 

We had reached the stairs to that subterranean chamber in which theBehemoth of Holy Writ was wallowing about without a thought of thedignity which one expects from a canonical character. Billy had alwayslanguished upon his memories of this diverting beast, and I stood readyto see him plunge headlong the moment that he read the signboard at thehead of the stairs. When he paused and hesitated there, not seemingat all anxious to go down till he saw the pretty girl and the childfollowing after--a sudden intuition flashed across me. Could it bepossible that Billy was caught in that vortex which whirled me down atten years--a little boy's first love?

We were lingering about the elliptical basin, and catching occasionalglimpses between bubbles of a vivified hair trunk of monstrous compass, whose knobby lid opened at one end and showed a red morocco lining, when the pretty girl, in leaning over to point out the rising monster, dropped into the water one of her little gloves, and the swash made bythe hippopotamus drifted it close under Billy's hand. Either in play, oras a mere coincidence, the animal followed it. The other children aboutthe tank screamed and started back as he bumped his nose against theside; but Billy manfully bent down and grabbed the glove, not an inchfrom one of his big tusks, then marched around the tank and presentedit to the lady with a chivalry of manner in one of his years quitesurprising. 

"That's a real nice boy--you said so, didn't you, Lottie? And I wishhe'd come and play with me, " said the little fellow by the young lady'sside, as Billy turned away, gracefully thanked, to come back to me withhis cheeks roseate with blushes. 

As he heard this, Billy sidled along the edge of the tank for a moment, then faced about and said:

"P'rhaps I will some day--where do you live?"

"I live on East Seventeenth Street with papa--and Lottie stays there toonow--she's my cousin: where d'you live?"

"Oh, I live close by--right on that big green square where I guessthe nurse takes you once in a while, " said Billy patronizingly. Then, looking up pluckily at the young lady, he added, "I never saw you outthere. "

"No, Jimmy's papa has only been in his new house a little while, andI've just come to visit him. "

"Say, will you come and play with me some time?" chimed in theinextinguishable Jimmy. "I've got a cooking stove--for real fire--andblocks and a ball with a string. "

Billy, who belonged to a club for the practice of the great Americangame, and was what A. Ward would call the most superior battest amongthe I. G. B. B. C, or "Infant Giants, " smiled from that altitude uponJimmy, but promised to go and play with him the next Saturday afternoon. 

Late that evening, after we had got home and dined, as I sat in my roomover Pickwick, with a sedative cigar, a gentle knock at the door told ofDaniel. I called "Come in!" and, entering with a slow dejected air, he sat down by my fire. For ten minutes he remained silent, thoughoccasionally looking up as if about to speak, then dropping his headagain to ponder on the coals. Finally I laid down Dickens, and spokemyself. 

"You don't seem well to-night, Daniel?"

"I don't feel very well, uncle. "

"What's the matter, my boy?"

"Oh--ah--I don't know. That is, I wish I knew how to tell you. "

I studied him for a few moments with kindly curiosity, then answered:"Perhaps I can save you the trouble by cross-examining it out of you. Let's try the method of elimination. I know that you are not harassed byany economical considerations, for you've all the money you want; and Iknow that ambition doesn't trouble you, for your tastes are scholarly. This narrows down the investigation of your symptoms--listlessness, general dejection, and all--to three causes: Dyspepsia, religiousconflicts, love. Now is your digestion awry?"

"No, sir, good as usual. I'm not melancholy on religion and--"

"You don't tell me you're in love?"

"Well--yes--I suppose that's about it, Uncle Teddy. "

I took a long breath to recover from my astonishment at thisunimaginable revelation, then said:

"Is your feeling returned?"

"I really don't know, uncle. I don't believe it is. I don't see how itcan be. I never did anything to make her love me. What is there in me tolove! I've borne enough for her--that is, nothing that could do her anygood--though I've endured on her account, I may say, anguish. So, lookat it any way you please, I neither am, do, nor suffer anything that canget a woman's love. "

"Oh, you man of learning! Even in love you tote your grammar alongwith you, and arrange a divine passion under the active, passive, andneuter!"

Daniel smiled faintly. 

"You've no idea, Uncle Teddy, that you are twitting on facts; but youhit the truth there; indeed you do. If she were a Greek or Latin womanI could talk Anacreon or Horace to her. If women only understood thephilosophy of the flowers as well as they do the poetry--"

"Thank God they don't, Daniel!" sighed out I devoutly. 

"Never mind--in that case I could entrance her for hours, talking aboutthe grounds of difference between Linnaeus and Jussieu. Women likethe star business, they say--and I could tell her where all theconstellations are; but sure as I tried to get off any sentiment aboutthem, I'd break down and make myself ridiculous. But what earthly chancewould the greatest philosopher that ever lived have with the womanhe loved, if he depended for her favor on his ability to analyze herbouquet or tell her when she might look out for the next occultation ofOrion? I can't talk bread and butter. I can't do anything that makes aman even tolerable to a woman!"

"I hope you don't mean that nothing but bread and butter talk istolerable to a woman!"

"No; but it's necessary to some extent--at any rate the ability is--inorder to succeed in society; and it is in society men first meetand strike women. And Uncle Teddy! I'm such a fish out of water insociety!--such a dreadful floundering fish! When I see her dancinggracefully as a swan swims, and feel that fellows, like little JackMankyn, 'who don't know twelve times, ' can dance to her perfectadmiration; when I see that she likes ease of manners--and all sorts ofmen without an idea in their heads have that--while I turn all colorswhen I speak to her, and am clumsy; and abrupt, and abstracted, and badat repartee--Uncle Teddy! sometimes (though it seems so ungrateful tofather and mother, who have spent such pains for me)--sometimes, do youknow, it seems to me as if I'd exchange all I've ever learned for thepower to make a good appearance before her!"

"Daniel, my boy, it's too much a matter of reflection with you! A womanis not to be taken by laying plans. If you love the lady (whose name Idon't ask you because I know you'll tell me as soon as you think best), you must seek her companionship until you're well enough acquainted withher to have her regard you as something different from the men whom shemeets merely in society, and judge your qualities by another standardthan that she applies to them. If she's a sensible girl (and God forbidyou should marry her otherwise!) she knows that people can't always bedancing, or holding fans, or running after orange ice. If she's a girlcapable of appreciating your best points (and woe to you if you marrya girl who can't!), she'll find them out upon closer intimacy, and oncefound they'll a hundred times outweigh all brilliant advantages kept inthe showcase of fellows who have nothing on the shelves. When this comesabout, you will pop the question unconsciously, and, to adopt Milton, she will drop into your lap, 'gathered--not harshly plucked. '"

"I know that's sensible, Uncle Teddy, and I'll try. Let me tell you thesacredest of secrets--regularly every day of my life I send her a littlepoem fastened round the prettiest bouquet I can get at Hanfts. "

"Does she know who sends them?"

"She can't have any idea. The German boy that takes them knows not aword of English except her name and address. You'll forgive me, Uncle, for not mentioning her name yet? You see she may despise or hate me someday when she knows who it is that has paid her these attentions; andthen I'd like to be able to feel that at least I've never hurt her byany absurd connection with myself. "

"Forgive you? Nonsense! The feeling does your heart infinite credit, though a little counsel with your head would show you that your onlyabsurdity is self-depreciation. "

Daniel bade me good-night. As I put out my cigar and went to bed, my mind reverted to the dauntless little Hotspur who had spent theafternoon with me, and reversed his mother's wish, thinking: "Oh, ifDaniel were more like Billy!"

It was always Billy's habit to come and sit with me while I smoked myafter-breakfast cigar, but the next morning did not see him enter myroom till St. George's hands pointed to a quarter of nine. 

"Well, Billy Boy Blue, come blow your horn; what haystack have you beenunder till this time of day? We shan't have a minute to look over ourspelling together, and I know a boy is going in for promotion next week. Have you had your breakfast and taken care of Crab?"

"Yes, sir, but I didn't feel like getting up this morning. "

"Are you sick?"

"No-o-o--it isn't that; but you'll laugh at me if I tell you. "

"Indeed, I won't, Billy!"

"Well"--his voice dropped to a whisper and he stole close to my side--"Ihad such a nice dream about _her_ just the last thing before the bellrang; and when I woke up I felt so queer--so kinder good and kinderbad--and I wanted to see her so much, that if I hadn't been a big boy, Ibelieve I should have blubbered. I tried ever so much to go to sleep andsee her again; but the more I tried the more I couldn't. After all, Ihad to get up without it, though I didn't want any breakfast, and onlyate two buckwheat cakes, when I always eat six, you know, Uncle Teddy. Can you keep a secret?"

"Yes, dear, so you couldn't get it out of me if you were to shake meupside down like a savings-bank. "

"Oh, ain't you mean! That was when I was small I did that. I'll tell youthe secret, though--that girl and I are going to get married. I mean toask her the first chance I get. Oh, isn't she a smasher!"

"My dear Billy, shan't you wait a little while to see if you always likeher as well as you do now? Then, too, you'll be older. "

"I'm old enough, Uncle Teddy, and I love her dearly. I am as old as theKings of France used to be when they got married--I read it in Abbott'shistory. But there's the clock striking nine! I must run or I shall geta tardy mark and perhaps she'll want to see my certificate some time. "

So saying, he kissed me on the cheek and set off for school as fastas his legs could carry him. Oh, Love, omnivorous Love, that sparestneither the dotard leaning on his staff nor the boy with pantaloonsbuttoning on his jacket--omnipotent Love, that, after parents andteachers have failed, in one instant can make Billy try to become a goodboy!

With both of my nephews hopelessly enamored and myself the confidantof both, I had my hands full. Daniel was generally dejected anddistrustful; Billy buoyant and jolly. Daniel found it impossible toovercome his bashfulness, was spontaneous only in sonnets, brilliantonly in bouquets. Billy was always coming to me with pleasant news, toldin his slangy New York boy vernacular. One day he would exclaim: "Oh, I'm getting on prime! I got such a smile off her this morning as I wentby the window!" Another day he wanted counsel how to get a valentine toher--because it was too big to shove in a lamppost and she might catchhim if he left it on the steps, rang the bell, and ran away. Danielwrote his own valentine, but, despite its originality, that documentgave him no such comfort as Billy got from twenty-five cents' worth ofembossed paper, pink cupids, and doggerel. 

Finally Billy announced to me that he had been to play with Jimmy andgot introduced to his girl. 

Shortly after this Lu gave what they call "a little company"--not aparty, but a reunion of forty or fifty people with whom the family werewell acquainted, several of them living in our immediate neighborhood. There was a goodly proportion of young fold and there was to be dancing;but the music was limited to a single piano played by the German exileusual on such occasions, and the refreshments did not rise to thesplendor of a costly supper. This kind of compromise with fashionablegayety was wisely deemed by Lu the best method of introducing Daniel tothe _beau monde_--a push given the timid eaglet by the maternal bird, with a soft tree-top between him and the vast expanse of society. Howsimple was the entertainment may be inferred from the fact that Lu feltsomewhat discomposed when she got a note from one of her guests askingleave to bring along her niece who was making her a few weeks' visit. Asa matter of course, however, she returned answer to bring the young ladyand welcome. 

Daniel's dressing-room having been given up to the gentlemen, I invitedhim to make his toilet in mine, and indeed, wanting him to create afavorable impression, became his valet _pro tem_. , tying his cravat andteasing the divinity-student look out of his side hair. My little dandyBilly came in for another share of attention, and when I managed tobutton his jacket for him so that it showed his shirt studs "likea man's, " Count d'Orsay could not have felt a greater sense of hissufficiency for all the demands of the gay world. 

When we reached the parlor we found Pa and Ma Lovegrove alreadyreceiving. About a score of guests had arrived. Most of them were oldmarried couples which, after paying their devoirs, fell in two likeunriveted scissors, the gentlemen finding a new pivot in pa and theladies in ma, where they mildly opened and shut upon such questions asseverally concerned them, such as "The way gold closed" and "How thechildren were. "

Besides the old married people there were several old young men, ofdistinctly hopeless and unmarried aspect, who, having nothing incommon with the other class, nor sufficient energy of character to bandthemselves for mutual protection, hovered dejectedly about the archpillars or appeared to be considering whether on the whole it would notbe feasible and best to sit down on the centre-table. These subsistedupon such crumbs of comfort as Lu could get an occasional chance tothrow them by rapid sorties of conversation--became galvanically activethe moment they were punched up and fell flat the moment the punchingwas remitted. I did all I could for them, but, having Daniel in tow, dared not sail too near the edge of the Doldrums, lest he should dropinto sympathetic stagnation and be taken preternaturally bashful withhis sails all aback, just as I wanted to carry him gallantly intoaction with some clipper-built cruiser of a nice young lady. Finally, Lubethought herself of that last plank of drowning conversationalists, thephotograph album. All the dejected young men made for it at once, somereaching it just as they were about to sink for the last time, but allgetting a grip on it somehow and staying there, in company with otherpeople's babies whom they didn't know, and celebrities whom they knew todeath, until, one by one, they either stranded upon a motherly dowagerby the Fire-Place Shoals, or were rescued from the Sofa Reef by somegallant wrecker of a strong-minded young lady, with a view of takingsalvage out of them in the German. 

Besides these, were already arrived a dozen nice little boys and girlswho had been invited to make it pleasant for Billy. I had to remind himof the fact that they were his guests, for, in comparison with the queenof his affections, they were in danger of being despised by him as smallfry. 

The younger ladies and gentlemen--those who had fascinations to disportor were in the habit of disporting what they considered such--wereprobably still at home consulting the looking-glass until that oracleshould announce the auspicious moment for their setting forth. 

Daniel was in conversation with a perfect godsend of a girl whounderstood Latin and had taken up Greek. 

Billy was taking a moment's vacation from his boys and girls, busy with"Old Maid" in the extension room, and whispering, with his hand in mine, "Oh, don't I wish _she_ were here!" when a fresh invoice of ladies, justunpacked from the dressing-room, in all the airy elegance of eveningcostume, floated through the door. I heard Lu say:

"Ah, Mrs. Rumbullion! happy to see your niece, too. How do you do, MissPilgrim?"

At this last word Billy jumped as if he had been shot, and the bevy ofladies opening about Sister Lu disclosed the charming face and figure ofthe pretty girl we had met at Barnum's. 

Billy's countenance rapidly changed from astonishment to joy. 

"Isn't that splendid, Uncle Teddy? Just as I was wishing it! It's justlike the fairy books!" and, rushing up to the party of new-comers, "Mydear Lottie!" cried he, "if I had only known you were coming I'd havecome after you!"

As he caught her by the hand, I was pleased to see her soft eyesbrighten with gratification at his enthusiasm, but my sister Lu lookedon, naturally with astonishment in every feature. 

"Why Billy!" said she, "you ought not to call a strange young lady'_Lottie?_ Miss Pilgrim, you must excuse my wild boy--"

"And you must excuse my mother, Lottie, " said Billy, affectionatelypatting Miss Pilgrim's rose kid, "for calling you a strange young lady. You are not strange at all--you're just as nice a girl as there is. "

"There are no excuses necessary, " said Miss Pilgrim, with a bewitchinglittle laugh. "Billy and I know each other intimately well, Mrs. Lovegrove, and I confess that when I heard the lady Aunt had beeninvited to visit was his mother, I felt all the more willing toinfringe on etiquette this evening, by coming where I had no previousintroduction. "

"Don't you care!" said Billy encouragingly, "I'll introduce you to everyone of our family; I know 'em if you don't. "

At this moment I came up as Billy's reinforcement, and, fearing lest, inhis enthusiasm, he might forget the canon of society which introduceda gentleman to a lady, not a lady to him, I ventured to suggestit delicately by saying, "Billy, will you grant me the favor of apresentation to Miss Pilgrim?"

"In a minute, Uncle Teddy, " answered Billy, considerably lowering hisvoice. "The older people first;" and after this reproof I was left towait in the cold until he had gone through the ceremony of introducingto the young lady his father and his mother. 

Billy, who had now assumed entire guardianship of Miss Pilgrim, with anair of great dignity intrusted her to my care, and left us promenadingwhile he went in search of Daniel. I, myself, looked in vain for thatyouth, whom I had not seen since the entrance of the last comers. MissPilgrim and I found a congenial common ground in Billy, whom she spokeof as one of the most delightfully original boys she had ever met; infact, altogether the most fascinating young gentleman she had seenin New York society. You may be sure it wasn't Billy's left ear whichburned when I made my responses. 

In five minutes he reappeared to announce, in a tone of disappointment, that he could find Daniel nowhere. He could see a light through hiskeyhole, but the door was locked and he could get no admittance. Justthen Lu came up to present a certain--no, an uncertain--young man of thefleet stranded on parlor furniture earlier in the evening. To Lu's greatastonishment, Miss Pilgrim asked Billy's permission to leave him. It wasgranted with all the courtesy of a _preux chevalier_, on the condition, readily assented to, that she should dance one Lancers with him duringthe evening. 

"Dear me!" exclaimed Lu, after Billy had gone back like a superiorbeing, to assist at the childish amusement of his contemporaries, "wouldanybody ever suppose that was our Billy?"

"I should, my dear sister, " said I, with proud satisfaction; "but youremember I always was just to Billy. "

Left free, I went myself to hunt up Daniel. I found his door lockedand a light showing through the keyhole, as Billy had said. I made noattempt to enter by knocking; but, going to my room and opening thewindow next his, I leaned out as far as I could, shoved up his sashwith my cane and pushed aside his curtain. Such an unusual method ofcommunication could not fail to bring him to the window with a rush. When he saw me, he trembled like a guilty thing, his countenance fell, and, no longer able to feign absence, he unlocked his door and let meenter by the normal mode. 

"Why, Daniel Lovegrove, my nephew, what does this mean; are you sick?"

"Uncle Edward, I am not sick, and this means that I am a fool. Even alittle boy like Billy puts me to shame. I feel humbled to the very dust. I wish I'd been a missionary and got massacred by savages. Oh, that I'dbeen permitted to wear damp stockings in childhood, or that my motherhadn't carried me through the measles! If it weren't wrong to take mylife into my own hands, I'd open that window and--and--sit in a draughtthis very evening! Oh, yes! I'm just that bitter! Oh! Oh! Oh!"

And Daniel paced the floor with strides of frenzy. 

"Well, my dear fellow, let's look at the matter calmly for a minute. What brought on this sudden attack? You seemed doing well enough thefirst ten minutes after we came down. I was only out of your sight longenough to speak to the Rumbullion party who had just come in, and whenI turned you were gone. Now you are in this fearful condition. Whatis there in the Rumbullions to start you off on such a bender ofbash-fulness as this which I here behold?"

"Rumbullions indeed!" said Daniel. "A hundred Rumbillions could not makeme feel as I do; but _she_ can shake me into a whirlwind with her littlefinger, and _she_ came with the Rumbullions!"

"What! D'you--Miss Pilgrim?"

"Miss Pilgrim!"

I labored with Daniel for ten minutes, using every encouragement andargument I could think of, and finally threatened him that I would bringup the whole Rumbullion party, Miss Pilgrim included, telling themthat he invited them to look at his conchological cabinet, unless heinstantly shook the ice out of his manner and accompanied me downstairs. This dreadful menace had the desired effect. He knew that I would notscruple to fulfil it; and at the same time that it made him surrender italso provoked him with me to a degree which gave his eyes and cheeksas fine a glow as I could have wished for the purpose of a favorableimpression. The stimulus of wrath was good for him, and there was littletremor in his knees when he descended the stairs. Well-a-day--so Danieland Billy were rivals!

The latter gentleman met us at the foot of the staircase. 

"Oh, there you are, Daniel!" said he, cheerily. "I was just going tolook for you and Uncle Teddy. We wanted you for the dances. We havehad the Lancers twice and three round dances; and I danced the secondLancers with Lottie. Now we're going to play some games to amuse thechildren, you know, " he added loftily with the adult gesture of pointinghis thumb over his shoulder at the extension room. "Lottie's going toplay, too, so will you and Daniel, won't you, uncle? Oh, here comesLottie now! This is my brother, Miss Pilgrim; let me introduce him toyou. I'm sure you'll like him. There's nothing he don't know. "

Miss Pilgrim had just come to the newel post of the staircase, and whenshe looked into Daniel's face blushed like the red, red rose, losing herself-possession perceptibly more than Daniel. 

The courage of weak warriors and timid gallants mounts as the oppositeparty's falls, and Daniel made out to say, in a firm tone, that it waslong since he had enjoyed the pleasure of meeting Miss Pilgrim. 

"Not since Mrs. Cramcroud's last sociable, I think, " replied MissPilgrim, her cheeks and eyes still playing the telltale. 

"Oho! so you don't want any introduction, " exclaimed Master Billy. Ididn't know you knew each other, Lottie. "

"I have met Mr. Lovegrove in society. Shall we go and join in theplays?"

"To be sure we shall!" cried Billy. "You needn't mind; all the grownpeople are going to. "

On entering the parlor we found it as he had said. The guests beingalmost all well acquainted with each other, at the solicitation ofjolly little Mrs. Bloomingal, Sister Lu had consented to make a pleasantChristmas kind of time of it, in which everybody was permitted to beyoung again and romp with the rompiest. We played Blindman's-buff tillwe tired of that--Daniel, to Lu's great delight, coming out splendidlyas Blindman, and evincing such "cheek" in the style he hunted down andcaught the ladies, as satisfied me that nothing but his sight stood inthe way of his making an audacious figure in the world. Then a prettylittle girl, Tilly Turtelle, who seemed quite a premature flirt, proposed "Doorkeeper"--a suggestion accepted with great _éclat_ by allthe children, several grown people assenting. 

To Billy--quite as much on account of his shining prominence in theexecutive faculties of his character, as host--was committed the dutyof counting out the first person to be sent into the hall. There were somany of us that "Aina-maina-mona-mike" would not go quite around;but with that promptness of expedient which belongs to genius, Billyinstantly added on "Intery-mintery-cutery-corn, " and the last word ofthe cabalistic formula fell upon me, Edward Balbus. I disappeared intothe entry amid peals of happy laughter from both old and young, calling, when the door opened again to ask me who I wanted, for the pretty, lisping flirt who had proposed the game. After giving me a coquettishlittle chirrup of a kiss and telling me my beard scratched, she bade me, on my return, send out to her "Mither Billy Lovegrove. " I obeyed her;my youngest nephew retired and, after a couple of seconds, during whichTilly undoubtedly got what she proposed the game for, Billy beinga great favorite with the little girls, she came back pouting andblushing, to announce that he wanted Miss Pilgrim. The young ladyshowed no mock modesty, but arose at once and laughingly went out to heryouthful admirer, who, as I afterward learned, embraced her ardently andtold her he loved her better than any girl in the world. As he turnedto go back she told him that he might send to her one of her juvenilecousins, Reginald Rumbullion. Now, whether because on this youthfulRumbullion's account Billy had suffered the pangs of that most terriblepassion, jealousy, or from his natural enjoyment of playing practicaljokes destructive of all dignity in his elders, Billy marched into theroom, and, having shut the door behind him, paralyzed the crowded parlorby an announcement that Mr. Daniel Lovegrove was wanted. 

I was standing at his side and could feel him' tremble--see him turnpale. 

"Dear me!" he whispered, in a choking voice; "can she mean me?"

"Of course she does, " said I. "Who else? Do you hesitate? Surely youcan't refuse such an invitation from a lady. "

"No; I suppose not, " said he, mechanically. And, amid much laughter fromthe disinterested, while the faces of Mrs. Rumbullion and his motherwere spectacles of crimson astonishment, he made his exit from the room. Never in my life did I so much long for that instrument, describedby Mr. Samuel Weller--a pair of patent, double-million magnifyingmicroscopes of hex-tery power, to see through a deal door. Instead ofthis I had to learn what happened only by report. 

Lottie Pilgrim was standing under the hall burners with her elbow on thenewel-post, more vividly charming than he had ever seen her before, atMrs. Crajncroud's sociable or elsewhere. When startled by the apparitionof Mr. Daniel Lovegrove instead of little Rumbullion whom she wasexpecting--she had no time to exclaim or hide her mounting color, noneat all to explain to her own mind the mistake that had occurred, beforehis arm was clasped around her waist and his lips so closely pressed tohers that, through her soft, thick hair she could feel the throbbing ofhis temples. As for Daniel, he seemed in a walking dream, from which hewaked to see Miss Pilgrim looking into his eyes with utter, thoughnot incensed stupefaction, --to stammer, "Forgive me! do forgive me! Ithought you were in, earnest. "

"So I was, " she said tremulously, as soon as she could catch her voice, "in sending for my cousin Reginald. "

"Oh dear, what shall I do! Believe me, I was told you wanted me. Letme go and explain it to mother. She will tell the rest--I couldn't doit--I'd die of mortification. Oh, that wretched boy Billy!"

On the principle already mentioned, his agitation reassured her. 

"Don't try to explain it now--it may get Billy a scolding. Are there anybut intimate family friends here this evening?"

"No--I believe--no--I'm sure, " replied Daniel, collecting his faculties. 

"Then I don't mind what they think. Perhaps they'll suppose we've knowneach other long; but we'll arrange it by and by. They'll think the moreof it the longer we stay out here--hear them laugh! I must run back now. I'll send you somebody. "

A round of juvenile applause greeted her as she hurried into the parlor, and a number of grown people smiled quite musically. Her quick woman'swit told her how to retaliate and divide the embarrassment of theoccasion. As she passed me she said in an undertone:

"Answer quick! Who is that fat lady on the sofa who laughed so loud?"

"Mrs. Cromwell Craggs, " said I, quietly. 

Miss Pilgrim made a satirically low courtesy and spoke in a modest butdistinct voice:

"I really must be excused for asking. I'm a stranger, you know; but isthere such a lady here as Mrs. Craggs--Mrs. _Cromwell_ Craggs? For, ifso, the present doorkeeper would like to see Mrs. Cromwell Craggs. "

Then came the turn of the fat lady to be laughed at; but out she had togo and get kissed like the rest of us. Before the close of the eveningBilly was made as jealous as his parents and I were surprised to seeDaniel in close conversation with Miss Pilgrim among the geraniums andfuchsias of the conservatory. 

"A regular flirtation, " said Billy, somewhat indignantly. The conclusionwhich they arrived at was that after all no great harm had been done, and that the dear little fellow ought not to be peached on for his fun. If I had known at the time how easily they forgave him, I should havesuspected that the offence Billy had led Daniel into committing was notunlikely to be repeated on the offender's own account; but so much as Icould see showed me that the ice was broken. 

Billy's jealousy did not outlast the party. He became more and moreinterested in "his girl, " and often went in the afternoon, after gettingout of school, ostensibly to play with Jimmy. Daniel's calls, accordingto adult etiquette, made in the evening, did not interfere with myyounger nephew's, and as neither knew that the other, after his fashion, was his most uncompromising rival, my position, as the confidant ofboth, was one of extreme delicacy. But the matter was more speedilysettled than I expected. 

Billy came to me one day and told me that he intended to get marriedimmediately; that he was going to speak to his Lottie that veryafternoon. He was prepared to meet every objection. He had asked hisfather if he might, and his father said yes, if he had money enough tosupport a wife--and Billy thought he had. He'd saved up all the moneyhis Uncle Jim and Aunt Jane had sent him for Christmas; and besides, ifhe were once married, his father wouldn't see him want for stamps, heknew. Then, too, he was going to leave school and be a merchant nextyear--and I'd help him now and then, if he got hard up, wouldn't I?If he were driven to it, he could be a good boy again, and save up themoney to buy Lottie presents with, instead of giving it to nasty old"Objecks. " He was so much older than when he had the savings-bank thathe ought to have at least ten cents a day now for being good; didn'tI think that was fair? As to his age, if Lottie loved him, he didn'tcare--anyway he would be lots bigger than she was before long--and he'doften heard his ma say she approved of early marriages; hers and pa'swas one. So he ran off up Livingston Place, the most undaunted loverthat ever put an extra shine on his proposal boots, or spent half anhour on the bow of his popping necktie. 

Shortly after, Daniel went into the street. Not meaning to call upon his_inamorata_, but drawn by the irresistible fascination of passing herhouse, he strolled in the direction that Billy had gone. As he came tothe Rumbullions', something suddenly bade him enter--a whim he calledit, but not his own--one of the whims of destiny which are alwaysgratified. 

"Yes, sir, " said the servant, "Miss Pilgrim is in, I will call her. "

His step was always light. He passed noiselessly into the front parlorand sat down among the heavy brocatelle curtains which shadowed therecess of one of the windows. He supposed Miss Pilgrim to be upstairs, and while his heart fluttered, expecting her footfall at the particulardoor, he heard an earnest boyish voice in the inside room. Looking fromhis concealment he beheld Miss Pilgrim on a sofa in the pier and sittingby her side, with her hand clasped in his, his brother Billy. Before hecould avoid it, he became aware that Billy was unconsciously but eagerlyforestalling him. 

"Now, Lottie, my dear Lottie! I wish you would! I'll do everything I canto make you happy. If you'll only marry me, I'll be good all thetime! Come now! Say yes! Father's got a really nice place over thestable--they only use it for a tool room now; we could clear it out andhave it scrubbed and go to housekeeping right away. Ma'd let us have allher old set of chinai I've got a silver mug Uncle Teddy gave me and anapkin ring and four spoons. As soon as I make my money I'll buy a nicecarriage and horses, any color you want 'em. Oh, my darling, darlingLottie, I do love you so much and we could have such a splendid time! Dosay yes, Lottie--please, _do_ please!"

Miss Pilgrim looked at the earnest little suitor with a face inwhich tender interest and compassion quite overrode any sense ofthe whimsicality of the situation which might lurk there. Daniel'sastonishment at the sight was so great that he realized the entire stateof the case before he could recover himself sufficiently to rise and gointo the back room. 

Billy jumped up and looked defiantly at the intruder. Miss Pilgrimblushed violently, but turned away her head to avoid the exhibition of astill more convulsing emotion than embarrassment. 

"I must beg your pardon, Miss Pilgrim--and yours, too, Billy, " beganDaniel in a hesitating way, hardly knowing how to treat the posture inwhich he found things, "but--you see--the fact is the servant said she'dgo to announce me--and really when I came in, I hadn't any idea you werehere, or Billy either. "

"Then, " said Billy, moderating the defiant attitude, "you actuallyweren't dodging around and trying to find out what Lottie and I wereabout on the sly? Well, I'll believe you. I'm sure you couldn't be asmean as that, when I'm the only brother you have got, that always bringsyou oranges when you're sick, and never plays ball on the stairs whenyou've got a headache. Now, then, I'll trust you, I've been askingLottie to marry me, and I want you to help me. Ask her if she won't, Daniel--see if she won't do it for you!"

Miss Pilgrim had been trying to find words, but her face was too muchfor her and she was obliged to seek retirement in her handkerchief. Asshe drew it from her pocket, a well-worn piece of paper followed it andfell upon the floor. Billy picked it up before she noticed it, andwas about to hand it to her, when his jealous eye fell upon a witheredrosebud sewed to its margin. As he looked at it, with his littlebrows knit into a precocious sternness, he recognized his brother'shandwriting immediately beneath the flower. It was one of the dailyanonymous sonnets, of which Daniel had told me, and the bud a relic ofthe bouquet accompanying it. Still Daniel was silent. What else could hebe?

"Very well, very well, Master Daniel!" exclaimed Billy, in a voicetrembling with grief and indignation, "there's good enough reason whyyou won't speak a word for me. You want her yourself--here it is in yourown writing. No wonder you won't tell Lottie to be my wife, when you'retrying to take her away from me. Oh, Lottie, dear Lottie! I love youjust as much as he does, though I don't know everything and can't writeyou poetry like it was out of the Fifth Reader! Daniel, how could yougo and write to my Lottie this way: 'My churner'--no, it isn't churner, it's charmer, --'let me call thee mine'?"

Forgetting the sacredness of private MS. In that of private grief, he would have gone on, with a pause here and there for certainty ofspelling, to the conclusion of the poem, had not Lottie sprung up, withher imploring face suffused by her discovery, for the first time, ofthe identity of her secret lover and the escape of his sonnet from herpocket. It was too late! There he stood before her unmistakably proved, and herself unmistakably proving in what estimation she held his versesand bouquets. 

"Oh Billy, dear Billy! If you do love me, don't do so!" So exclaiming, she held out her hand, and Billy put the MS. Into it with all thedignity of a wounded spirit. 

"Mr. Lovegrove, " said Miss Pilgrim, "I don't know what to say. "

"I feel very much that way myself, " said Daniel. 

"_I_ don't, " said Billy, now in command of his voice. "I'll tellyou what it is: perhaps Daniel didn't know how much I wanted you, Lottie--and perhaps he wants you 'most as bad as I do. But whatever wayit is, I want you to choose between us, fair and square, and no dodging. Come now! You can take just whichever one of us you please, and theother won't lay up any grudge, though I know if that's me, or like me, he'll feel awful. You can have till to-morrow morning to make up yourmind between me and Daniel, and if he won't say anything about it to paand ma till then, I won't. Good-by, _dear_ Lottie!"

He drew her face down to his, kissed her almost affectionately and thenmarched out of the door, feeling, as he afterward told me, as if hehad blackened his boots all for nothing. Ah me! my dear Billy, how manytimes we do that in this world! Of what followed when Daniel and MissPilgrim were left alone, I have never had full details. 

But I do know that the young lady obeyed Billy and made her choice. Sixmonths after that both my nephews stood up in Mrs. Rumbullion's parlorto take their several shares in a ceremony in which Miss Pilgrim wasthe central figure when it began, and Mrs. Daniel Lovegrove when itconcluded. Time and elasticity of boyhood had so closed the sharp butevanescent wound in Billy's heart that he could stand the trial of beinggroomsman where he had wanted to be groom--more especially since hewas supported through the emergency by a little sister of Lottie's whopromised to be wondrously like her by the time Billy could stand up inthe more enviable capacity. Neither Daniel nor Lottie would listen toany objection to such a groomsman on the score of his extreme youth, for, as they said, Billy had been quite as instrumental in bringing themtogether as any agent, save the Divinity shaping the ends and tying allthe knots in which there are heartstrings concerned, as well as whiteribbon. 

Since then Lu has stopped wishing that Billy were like Daniel, for shesays that if he had been, there would never have been any Mrs. DanielLovegrove in the world.