"I am much obliged, I'm sure," exclaimed Tom, "and you're just a trump, that's the truth." "I suppose that's the reason you keep him so carefully in your hand," interposed Elsie, laughing. Tom was instantly covered with confusion, and let Mellen's hand drop. He knew there was a joke somewhere, but for the life of him he could not see where it come in. "You are beginning to laugh at me before you have even said 'How do you do?'" cried he, ruefully. "And am I not to laugh at you, if I please?" exclaimed Elsie. "Shake hands, you cross-grained old thing, and don't begin to quarrel the moment we meet." Tom blushed like a girl while he bent over the little hand she laid in his, holding it carefully, and looking down on it with a sort of delighted wonder, as if it had been some rare rose-tinted shell that his fingers might break at the slightest touch. But Mellen was not looking at them; he stood there wondering if this man could have been of any consequence in Elizabeth's past. Could she have loved him, and been prevented from marrying him in some way? No, it was impossible; he felt, he knew that it was so; but the idea would come into his mind nevertheless. "When you have done examining my hand, Mr. Tom Fuller, please give it back," said Elsie. "It don't amount to much, but, as the Scotchwoman observed of her clergyman's head, 'it's some good to the owner.'" Tom dropped the little hand as if the pink fingers had burned his palm. "I'm always the awkwardest fellow alive!" cried he, dismally. "And how is Bessie, dear girl?" Mellen roused himself. "I will call her," he said; "she is quite well, and will be delighted to see you." He went into the house in search of his wife, and Elsie began to tease her unfortunate victim, a pastime of which she never wearied. It seemed to her the funniest thing in the world to make that great creature blush and stammer, to lead him on to the perpetration of absurd things, to laugh at him, to bewilder his honest head; for any pain he might suffer, she considered it no more than she did the sorrows of a Fejee Islander, or the chirp of her canary. "Have you come down here prepared to be agreeable?" she asked. "Remember, I expect you to devote yourself completely to my service--to wait on me like the most devoted of knights." "I'd stand on my head if you asked it," answered Tom, impetuously. "How deliciously odd you would look!" cried Elsie; "you shall try it some day; I only hope it won't leave you with a brain fever, but then it couldn't, Tom,--where is the capital for such a disease to come from?" "You may tease me as much as you like," said Tom, "if you'll only say you are glad to see me." "Oh, you will be invaluable," replied Elsie; "I was getting bored with watching other people's love-making. Can you row a boat and teach me to play billiards, and be generally nice and useful?" "Just try me, that's all!" said Tom.