When I had seen this hot love on the wing, As I perceived it first, I tell you that, If I had played the desk, or table book, Or given my heart a winking mute and dumb, Or looked upon this love with idle sight— What might you think? No, I went round to work, And my young mistress thus did I bespeak: “This must not be”; and then I precepts gave her, That she should keep herself from his resort, Admit no messengers, receive no tokens, Which done, she took the fruits of my advice, And him repulsed. SHAKESPEARE. Em. was sitting alone in Mrs. Bruce’s room, her hands busily engaged with needlework and her thought with something else, when the little maid, Liza, entered and said: “Miss Em., ole Marse Commodore sent me to ax yer how he want to see yer in the study.” The young girl, who thought that Commodore Bruce only wanted her to read to him, promptly laid aside her work and arose, saying: “Very well. I will go at once; and, Liza, will you please to tell Mrs. Bruce that the commodore has sent for me, so that she may know why I am absent?” “Yes, miss, I’ll tell her; but, la! marse is marse and missus bofe here! Nobody ain’t no call to make no ’scuses to any missus when ole marse wants ’em, I tell you that,” replied Liza as she followed the seamstress from the room. Em. went down to the study. She found the old man still in his dressing-gown and skull-cap, seated in his leathern arm-chair beside the table. The chair just vacated by Ronald Bruce still stood before him. As Em. entered he leaned back wearily and sighed. “You sent for me, sir,” said the girl as she drew near. “Yes, child. Take this seat in front of me. I wish to talk to you,” he answered gently. Em. sat down, feeling somewhat embarrassed to be so near and so directly under the eyes of Commodore Bruce. But the old man gazed kindly down on her drooping face and thought how much it looked like that of his poor lost boy, Lonny, when the latter was a lad and was under rebuke for some childish fault. “Do not be afraid of me, my dear,” he said gently, as he observed her confusion. “I am not afraid, only——” Em. began and stopped. “You are not afraid, only you are _afraid_. You think I am going to talk to you of Ronald. Is it not so?” Em. could not speak; she bowed and caught her breath. “You are right, my child,” answered the commodore, and then he dropped his head upon his chest until his long gray beard swept to his waist, and he fell into silent thought. It had been hard to open the subject with the young man; it was very much harder to do so with the young girl. At length he raised his head, and looking at her very kindly, said: