“That girl sings well. Do you know her--Miss Davison? She's soon to be married, THEY say (d--n 'they say,' however--the greatest scandal-monger, if not mischief-maker and liar, in the world!)--she is soon to be married to young Trescott--a clover lad who sniffles, plays on the flute, wears whisker and imperial on the most cream-colored and effeminate face you ever saw! A good fellow, nevertheless, but a silly! She is a good fellow, too, rather the cleverest of the twain, and perhaps the oldest. The match, if match it really is to be, none of the wisest for that very reason. The damsel, now-a-days, who marries a lad younger than herself, is laying up a large stock of pother, which is to bother her when she becomes thirty--for even young ladies, you know, after forty, may become thirty. A sort of dispensation of nature. She sings well, nevertheless.” I said something--it matters not what. Dark images of home were in my eyes. I heard no song--saw no landscape The voice of Kingsley was a sort of buzzing in my ears. “You are dull to-night, but that song ought to soothe you. What a cheery, light-hearted wench it is! Her voice does seem so to rise in air, shaking its wings, and crying tira-la! tira-la! with an enthusiasm which is catching! I almost feel prompted to kick up my heels, throw a summerset, and, while turning on my axis, give her an echo of tira-la! tira-la! tira-la! after her own fashion.” “You are certainly a happy, mad fellow, Kingsley!” was my faint, cheerless commentary upon a gayety of heart which I could not share, and the unreserved expression of which, at that moment, only vexed me.