"Weeks went on--oh, I forgot; in the meantime Mr. Gardner wrote two letters, one to Mr. Dunbar about Mary, and one to Mary herself, but not much about her. It was mostly a business letter, written in a calm, friendly style, and asking her opinion about some alterations he proposed making in the house, adding a wing, I think. He seemed to consider her a person who had a right to be consulted in his arrangements, and I remember he finished his letter with 'Yours, &c.' Mary handed the letter to me with a look of extreme vexation, which at length subsided into a hearty laugh. I laughed too, but Mr. Dunbar did not, and looked rather surprised at us. "In the course of four weeks from the time of our return, this ardent lover appeared in person. He drove up to the door in a very handsome carriage, and with his servant, all looking very stylish. I saw Mary color extremely, but she sat quite still, and when Mr. Gardner entered and went toward her holding out his hand, she remained in her place, and did not move her hand at all. He shook hands with the rest of us. Mary made tea, and one or two persons coming in, Mr. Gardner became rather animated, and appeared as he was, a very gentlemanly, intelligent person. At last Mary could bear it no longer. She ran out of the room and went up to her chamber. She shared hers with me, and Mr. Gardner's was adjoining ours. It was rather late, between ten and eleven o'clock, and presently Mr. Gardner, who was somewhat fatigued, bade us good-night and ascended to his own apartment. I then went to Mary's room: I found her in a state of great excitement and indignation, and yet though I sympathized fully with her, there was something so comical in the business-like way of doing the thing, which Mr. Gardner had adopted, and his entire unconsciousness of the sort of person he was to deal with, that I began to laugh heartily. "'Hush! hush! for Heaven's sake! he can hear every word! Oh, my heart!--do you believe, he has come up stairs and gone straight to bed, and is this minute fast asleep! there--hear him! don't laugh! he'll wake as sure as you do!' "But laugh I did, for I could not help it, albeit Mary's pallid face and earnest eyes checked me in the midst. "'Now I am going down stairs this minute to put a stop to all this at once. I could not have believed stupidity could have gone so far. I shall see my brother and have an end put to his journeys here: good heavens! to think of it.' "This I could not object to, of course. Indeed, from the first of this very peculiar 'arrangement' I had not been consulted by either Mary or her brother, and I had a dreamy sort of feeling that by and by we should all wake up and find Mr. Gardner was only an incubus, instead of the unpleasant reality he was getting to be. "I sat still for nearly or quite half an hour, when Mary returned to her chamber on tiptoe and looking very pale.