"What a nice, sensible little companion she would be for a man," he resumed presently, after the firm even footsteps had crunched the gravel awhile. "That is the best of her, she never bores or wearies one; she is always fresh and good-humored, and ready to take interest in everything, even in the schools, and Miss Marriott, only Miss Marriott repulses her somehow. Her manner vexed me this afternoon; there was a stand-offishness and a reserve in it, as though Dora's interest offended her. She never appears at her best advantage when Dora is with us. Why am I always comparing those two? somehow I can't help it. Dora interests me most, of course; and yet men who are in love seldom study the pros and cons of character as I have been doing for the last half-hour. Certainly some of the symptoms are still lacking, or else I am too matter-of-fact a fellow to have them. And yet I don't know. What were those lines Cathy repeated the other night? How well the little puss recited them; with such feeling too. 'Thy soul doth wait for mine, as mine for thee; We cannot live apart.' Humph! I am not in love so much as all that, and I don't think Dora is either. I have a doubt whether the 'open sesame' has been said to either of us yet; if so, 'where waitest thou, lady I am to love?' Well, it is a rare old poem, and touches a fellow up in an extraordinary sort of way. I have got it by heart now, and it haunts me to a droll extent. There, my cigar is out, confound it, so I may as well get rid of all this moonshine and go in. How runs the last verse-- 'Tis the May-light That crimsons all the quiet college gloom. May it shine softly in thy sleeping room; And so, dear wife, good night.'" CHAPTER VIII. THE MISTRESS OF BRIERWOOD COTTAGE. "By night we lingered on the lawn, For underfoot the herb was dry; And genial warmth; and o'er the sky The silvery haze of summer dawn; "And calm that let the tapers burn Unwavering: not a cricket chirr'd: The brook alone far off was heard, And on the board the fluttering urn." _Tennyson._ "A penny for your thoughts, little Emmie," cried Garth gaily, a few evenings afterwards, when his abrupt entrance had broken up a somewhat silent group. The child, who was sitting at Langley's feet as usual, with her head in her lap, held up her hand warningly. "Hush! I was counting them; now I have lost one." "Counting what, you small elf?" "The angels, of course; we have had ever so many passing through the room this evening. Just now Langley sighed and disturbed one. They never come when we talk and laugh, you know," continued Emmie, with a child's beautiful unreasoning faith in what would seem to older minds a piece of fond superstition. "I do love a real long silence, when people are all thinking together; the angels have such a good time of it then."