"I suppose I must go now," said the young gentleman when he had seen them safely seated in the small parlor overlooking the bay. But he did not seem anxious to go. "But why?" Wenna said, rather timidly. "You have no engagement, Mr. Trelyon. Would you care to stay and have dinner with us--such a dinner as we can give you?" "Well, to tell you the truth, I should like it very much," he said. Mrs. Rosewarne, a little surprised, and yet glad to see Wenna enjoying herself, regarded the whole affair with a gentle resignation. Wenna had the gas lit and the blinds let down: then, as the evening was rather cool, she had soon a bright fire burning in the grate. She helped to lay the table. She produced such wines as they had. She made sundry visits to the kitchen, and at length the banquet was ready. What ailed the young man? He seemed beside himself with careless and audacious mirth, and he made Mrs. Rosewarne laugh as she had not laughed for years. It was in vain that Wenna assumed airs to rebuke his rudeness. Nothing was sacred from his impertinence--not even the offended majesty of her face. And at last she gave in too, and could only revenge herself by saying things of him which, the more severe they were, the more he seemed to enjoy. But after dinner she went to the small piano, while her mother took a big easy-chair near the fire, and he sat by the table, looking over some books. There was no more reckless laughter then. In ancient times--that is to say, in the half-forgotten days of our youth--a species of song existed which exists no more. It was not as the mournful ballads of these days, which seem to record the gloomy utterances of a strange young woman who has wandered into the magic scene in _Der Freischütz_, and who mixes up the moanings of her passion with descriptions of the sights, and sounds she there finds around her. It was of quite another stamp. It dealt with a phraseology of sentiment peculiar to itself--a "patter," as it were, which came to be universally recognized in drawing-rooms. It spoke of maidens plighting their troth, of Phyllis enchanting her lover with her varied moods, of marble halls in which true love still remained the same. It apostrophized the shells of ocean; it tenderly described the three great crises of a particular heroine's life by mentioning her head-dress; it told of how the lover of Pretty Jane would have her meet him in the evening. Well, all the world was content to accept this conventional phraseology, and behind the paraphernalia of "enchanted moon-beams" and "fondest glances" and "adoring sighs" perceived and loved the sentiment that could find no simpler utterance. Some of us, hearing the half-forgotten songs again, suddenly forget the odd language, and the old pathos springs up again, as fresh as in the days when our first love had just come home from her boarding-school; while others, who have no old-standing acquaintance with these memorable songs, have somehow got attracted to them by the