"You have only to jog on in your old ways until she wakes you up and makes a man of you." "I surely am dreaming; for never did the level-headed Van Berg talk such arrant nonsense before. If she seems to you such a marvel, why don't you open your own mouth and let the ripe cherry drop into it." "One reason will answer, were there no others--she wouldn't drop. If you ever win her, my boy, you will have to bestir yourself." "I'd rather win the picture. Let me see--I know the very place in my room where I shall hang it." "You are a little premature. That chicken is not yet hatched, and you may feel like hanging yourself in the place of the picture before the summer is over." "Let me wrap your head in ice-water, Van. There's mine host--O, Mr. Burleigh!" he cried to the landlord, who at that moment happened to cross the piazza; "please step here. My friend Mr. Van Berg has been strangely fascinated by the stranger in brown whom you, with some deep and malicious design, placed opposite to him at the table. What are her antecedents, and who are her uncles? I take a friendly interest in this young man. Indeed, I'm sort of a guardian angel to him, having saved his life many a time." "Saved his life!" ejaculated the landlord. "How?" "By quenching his consuming genius with good dinners. But come--solve for me this riddle in brown. My friend usually gives but little heed to the feminine conundrums that smilingly ask to be answered, but for some occult reason he is in a state of sleepless interest over this one, and I know that his waistcoat is selling with gratitude to me for having the courage to ask these questions." "He is speaking several words for himself to one for me," said Van Berg; "and yet I admit that her face and manner struck me very pleasantly." "Well, she has a pleasant little phiz, now hasn't she, Mr. Van Berg? I don't wonder Mr. Stanton was taken by her, for I was myself. It's but little I can tell you, save that she is a teacher in one of the New England female colleges, and that she brings letters to me from the most respectable parties, who introduce her as a lady in the best sense of the word. Further than that nothing was written, nor do I know anything concerning her. But any one who can't see that she's a perfect lady is no judge of the article." "I will stake any amount on that, basing my belief only on the first impression of one interview," added Van Berg, decidedly. "You now see how deeply my friend is impressed," said Stanton, with a satirical smile. "Thanks, Mr. Burleigh; we will not detain you any longer." When alone again, he resumed, with an expression of disgust: "A 'New England FEMALE college!' How aptly he words it. If there's any region on the face of the earth that I detest, it's New England; and if there is one type of women that I'd shun as I would 'ever angry bears,' it's a New England school-ma'am."