'Had a differ'nt way o' sparkin' years ago,' said Uncle Eb. 'Didn't never hev it please anybody but the girl then. If ye liked a girl ye went an' sot up with her an' gin her a smack an' tol' her right out plain an' square what ye wanted. An' thet settled it one way er t' other. An' her mother she step' in the next room with the door half-open an' never paid no 'tention. Recollec' one col'night when I was sparkin' the mother hollered out o' bed, “Lucy, hev ye got anythin 'round ye?” an' she hollered back, “Yis, mother,” an' she hed too but 'twan't nothin' but my arm.' They laughed merrily, over the quaint reminiscence of my old friend and the quainter way he had of telling it. The rude dialect of the backwoodsman might have seemed oddly out of place, there, but for the quiet, unassuming manner and the fine old face of Uncle Eb in which the dullest eye might see the soul of a gentleman. 'What became of Lucy?' Mr Fuller enquired, laughingly. 'You never married her.' 'Lucy died,' he answered soberly; 'thet was long, long ago.' Then he went away with John Trumbull to the smoking-room where I found them, talking earnestly in a corner, when it was time to go to the church with Hope. Chapter 30 Hope and Uncle Eb and I went away in a coach with Mrs Fuller. There was a great crowd in the church that covered, with sweeping arches, an interior more vast than any I had ever entered. Hope was gowned in white silk, a crescent of diamonds in her hair--a birthday gift from Mrs Fuller; her neck and a part of her full breast unadorned by anything save the gifts of God--their snowy whiteness, their lovely curves. First Henry Cooper came on with his violin--a great master as I now remember him. Then Hope ascended to the platform, her dainty kid slippers showing under her gown, and the odious Livingstone escorting her. I was never so madly in love or so insanely jealous. I must confess it for I am trying to tell the whole truth of myself--I was a fool. And it is the greater folly that one says ever 'I was,' and never 'I am' in that plea. I could even see it myself then and there, but I was so great a fool I smiled and spoke fairly to the young man although I could have wrung his neck with rage. There was a little stir and a passing whisper in the crowd as she stood waiting for the prelude. Then she sang the ballad of Auld Robin Grey--not better than I had heard her sing it before, but so charmingly there were murmurs of delight going far and wide in the audience when she had finished. Then she sang the fine melody of 'Angels ever Bright and Fair', and again the old ballad she and I had heard first from the violin of poor Nick Goodall. By yon bonnie bank an' by yon bonnie bonnie brae The sun shines bright on Loch Lomond Where me an' me true love were ever won't if gae On the bonnie, bonnie bank o' Loch Lomond.