"You may find it so," said Maltboy; "but as for me, the flash of her eyes--there, now, for instance!--is convincing enough." "Perhaps you have seen her before," remarked Marcus Wilkeson. "Perhaps," was that gentleman's answer, implying, by his accent and accompanying wink, that he had seen her repeatedly. "And said nothing about her to us, you inveterate humbug," added Marcus. Mr. Maltboy felt the compliment conveyed in the word "humbug"--as most people do when that accusation of shrewdness and deep dissembling is brought against them--and smiled. "I confess," he replied, as he polished the window simultaneously with the performance of that process across the way, "I confess I have noticed her several times; but what was the use of mentioning it to a pair of woman haters like you?" His two companions laughed pleasantly, thereby expressing their gratification at the return compliment involved in the phrase "woman haters." "You are such dull fellows now," continued Maltboy, "that perhaps you will say this fair stranger is not looking at us; that she does not desire to be seen by us--that is, by me; and that her rubbing of the window with a handkerchief is not a signal which she expects to be answered." "We say nothing," replied the disputatious Overtop. "We only wait for proof. It is easy to find out whether a signal is meant or not. Rub the window now." Maltboy did so, concluding the act with an unmistakable flourish of the handkerchief. Whereupon the tall girl averted her face, pulled down the curtain, and eclipsed herself. Wilkeson and Overtop laughed, and, with a common impulse, punched Maltboy triumphantly in the ribs--a friendly salute that was always vastly amusing to that gentleman. "Be it understood, at this stage of affairs," said Marcus, solemnly, "that I reject the Overtop theory, and wash my hands of all responsibility for Maltboy's misdeeds.--Hallo! There he is again." "Who? Where?" exclaimed his two friends. "In the house nearly opposite--the one with the grape arbor. Isn't he a fine old fellow?" Overtop and Maltboy looked, and there saw, sitting at a window, and placidly gazing out of it, an old gentleman with long and thick white hair, a ruddy face, a white neckcloth, and a large projecting shirt frill--which were all the peculiarities of person and dress that could be distinctly made out. He was smoking a long pipe, and placidly rocking himself to and fro. His appearance, through the two windows, was that of a finely preserved relic of a past generation, "He always has a long pipe in his mouth, and looks benignantly into the open air," said Wilkeson, "So even _you_ are not wholly devoid of curiosity, and do take some interest in the people on our block," remarked Matthew Maltboy,