"What did Armari do to annoy you?" "He did nothing." "Why do you look so odd, then?" I did not answer. "Why, you foolish fellow," said Kate, laughing, and not heeding my entreating look, "it was Schwab, that best of good fellows." "Was he rude or bearish?" asked Cornelius, reddening. "Rude!" she replied, impatiently, "he was too civil!" "Schwab!" echoed Cornelius, in the tone of Caesar's 'Et tu Brute'-- "Schwab, too!" "Cornelius," I said, a little indignantly, "it was Schwab alone, if you please." He did not heed me; he was lost in his indignation and astonishment. "Schwab!" he said again--"Schwab, the woman-hater?" "There are no women-haters," observed his sister; "her tarts softened his obdurate heart from the first day, and Cupid did the rest. Now you need not look so desperately gloomy, Cornelius; he was not more civil than he had a right to be; and when she let him see quietly she did not like it, he, sensible man, thought there were girls as good and as pretty in Germany, and did not break his heart about her. He kept his own counsel, so did we; and but for me, you would be none the wiser." "Thank you," shortly said Cornelius, "but as I know this much, and as I am sure there is more, perhaps you will be good enough to tell me all about Armari now." "Ah! poor fellow," sighed Kate, "he is in a very bad way; I noticed he could scarcely eat, and Schwab said he had not slept a wink since that night at the play." "He will get over it," impatiently interrupted Cornelius. "I have known him seven times in the same way." "Then he must lead rather an agitated life; but, as I was saying, or rather, as Mr. Schwab told me, he has lost rest and appetite since that night at the play, when he saw the beautiful Mrs. Gleaver in the box next yours." She knew all about the opera-glass, and glanced mischievously at her brother. He reddened, looked disconcerted, and exclaimed hastily: "I don't believe a bit of that." "Yes, you do," she replied quietly, "and now, Cornelius, mind my words: that sort of thing is not in the girl's way, and will not be for a good time yet; perhaps never, for she has a very flinty heart." "Don't I know it?" he replied composedly, "and was it not Christian charity made me uneasy about poor Armari? I feared lest that brown, golden hair of hers," he added, smoothing it as he spoke, "might prove such a web as even his heart could not break. Lest her eyebrow, so dark and fine, might be the very bow of Cupid. Lest--"