"You can defend yourself, at all events, Henry," she replied; "and you know how completely you can silence me when you quote poetry. I never could learn to repeat a line of poetry in my life." There was a pause, during which Henry, who sat opposite the window, appeared to be absorbed in the prospect of garden, fields, and meadows, thick summer foliage, and the distant blue hills of Highgate and Harrow which met his view. But the eyes were not "with the heart, for that was far away,"--in the meadows of Christ Church, Oxford, with a fair young girl leaning on his arm. Persons who have the power of concentrating the mind on one particular subject at a time are spoken of as absent, and many curious incidents are related of talented men and their strange doings during these fits of abstraction. But it is to this very power of concentration that we owe our greatest statesmen, lawyers, poets, and warriors. The discovery of the power of steam, the inventions in science, art, mechanics, and medicine, which have given to the world its luxuries, its comforts, its advantages, and its power of alleviating suffering and pain, can all be attributed to that concentration of thought on one subject, which alone can give the mind a power to grasp it in all its completeness. The subject, however, so absorbing to Henry Halford might in one respect be called trivial; and yet that subject which involves the future happiness or misery of two individuals for life, can scarcely deserve such a name. The probable success of his letter to Mr. Armstrong was the least important of his thoughts at this moment. Would it insure the happiness of the girl he loved? and was he justified in proposing mere possibilities as a basis for that happiness? were some of the questions he asked himself. A smart blow with the palm of her hand on his shoulder, and his cousin Kate's words, "Uncle has spoken to you twice, Henry. What are you thinking about so deeply?" aroused him from his reverie. "I beg your pardon, sir," he exclaimed, with a flushed face, "did you ask me a question?" "Yes, Henry; I asked where you met Mr. Armstrong yesterday." "Outside his own gate. He had just arrived from town on horseback. He treated me most affably, and said he should be glad to see you and myself to join their six o'clock dinner at any time without a special invitation, as he never gives dinner-parties." There was a pause for some minutes, and then Mrs. Halford remarked-- "You met Miss Armstrong and her mother at Mr. Drummond's in March, James?" "Yes, I remember the young lady's bright, intelligent face. Drummond told me her father has interfered greatly in the education of his daughter, teaching her the advanced rules of arithmetic, and even algebra and Euclid, and other subjects most unusual in the education of girls." "I should imagine such knowledge would deprive a girl of all softness and refinement," remarked Mrs. Halford.