"Gabriel! going away, Mees Sal? this is not possible!" ejaculated the fascinating guest, breathing very hard, and turning all his teeth in a single broadside upon the susceptible handmaid. At any other moment, it is possible that Sal might have been suspicious of the stranger's excitement, but the fascination of his teeth held and possessed this fluttering virgin. "Ef thar ever waz a man ez had an angelic smile," she intimated afterwards in confidence to Mrs. Markle, "it waz thet young Eyetalian." She handed him several dishes, some of them empty, in her embarrassment and rejoined with an affectation of arch indignation, "Thank ye fur sayin' 'I lie,'--and it's my pay fur bein' a gossip and ez good ez I send--but thar's Olympy Conroy packed away to school fur six months, and thar's the new superintendent ez is come up to take Gabriel's situation, and he a sittin' in a grey coat next to ye a minit ago! Eh? And ye won't take nothin' more? Appil or cranbear' pie?--our own make? I'm afeerd ye ain't made out a dinner!" But Victor had already risen hurriedly and departed, leaving Sal in tormenting doubt whether she had not in her coquettish indignation irritated the tropical nature of this sensitive Italian. "I orter allowed fur his bein' a furriner and not bin so free. Pore young man! I thought he did luk tuk back when I jest allowed that he said I lied." And with a fixed intention of indicating her forgiveness and goodwill the next morning by an extra dish, Sal retired somewhat dejectedly to the pantry. She made a point, somewhat later, of dusting the hall in the vicinity of Victor's room, but was possibly disappointed to find the door open, and the tenant absent. Still later, she imparted some of this interview to Mrs. Markle with a certain air of fatigued politeness and a suggestion that, in the interest of the house solely, she had not repressed perhaps as far as maidenly pride and strict propriety demanded, the somewhat extravagant advances of the stranger. "I'm sure," she added, briskly, "why he kept a lookin' and a talkin' at me in that way, mind can't consave, and transients did notiss. And if he did go off mad, why, he kin git over it." Having thus delicately conveyed the impression of an ardent Southern nature checked in its exuberance, she became mysteriously reticent and gloomy.