_She._ Since we seem to be striving to outdo each other in abuse, it is quite in keeping for me to add, that I have no occasion to bother my head on such a question, for I never pretended to have found anything in you. _He._ But then, as I said, you amused me; and one may sometimes be so far amused that-- _She._ His amusement may even amount to astonishment, perhaps; and, by the way, that gentleman on the gray horse, just coming between the China laurels with papa, expects to marry me. _He._ Fred Armstrong, by all that is unspeakable! Agnes Peltonville, I humble myself in the dust before you; and no humiliation could be greater than going down into Cuban dust. You are an angel; you have removed my last fear. _She._ Yes; and how? _He._ I was always jealous of Fred Armstrong; he was forever dangling about Annie. Do I understand that you are engaged? _She._ Oh, I didn't say that I expected to marry him; but since Annie confesses such a strong attachment to you-- _He._ Oh, I didn't say I was the object of the attachment. [_They sit confronting each other in silence a moment, until the riders, having dismounted, are seen approaching the piazza. Then Chester leans forward impulsively, and speaks with a new intensity._] _He._ Agnes! _She._ Arthur! _He._ Quick! Before they come! You won't send me away? _She._ But-- _He._ No, no more nonsense; I am in dead earnest now. You know I couldn't live without you, or I shouldn't have followed you to Cuba. _She._ And Annie Cleaves? _He._ Oh, if you had a letter from her yesterday, you must know she's engaged to Bob Wainwright. Is it yes? _She._ (_rising._) It would be a pity that you should have come so far for nothing. [_As he rises also he manages to catch her hand, which he clasps joyously before the pair go forward to meet the new-comers._] _He._ I hope you had a pleasant ride, Mr. Peltonville? I like Marianao so well that I have concluded to remain a while. Tale the Ninth. DELIA GRIMWET. DELIA GRIMWET. To an ordinary observer, nothing could be more commonplace than Kempton, a decrepit little apology for a village, lying on the coast of Maine. Properly speaking, however, no sea-port can be utterly commonplace, with its suggestion of the mystery of the sea, the ships, the sailors who have been to far lands, the glimpses of unwritten tragedies on every hand. But among sea-side villages Kempton was surely dull enough, and dry enough, and lifeless enough,--as if the sea-winds had sucked its vitality, leaving it empty and pallid and juiceless, like the cockle-shells which bleached upon its sandy beaches. Yet Kempton had one peculiarity which marked it as singular among all New England towns. It had a woman to dig its graves.