We both laughed as we entered the tavern; I, to conceal the vexation I really felt, and Mr. Worden, as I presume, because he was flattered with the belief that I must have appeared quite as ridiculous as himself. Next morning I proceeded to Herman Mordaunt's residence at the earliest hour the rules of society would allow. I found the family established in one of those Dutch edifices, of which Albany was mainly composed, and which stood a little removed from the street--having a tiny yard in front, with the _stoop_ in the gable, and that gable towards the yard. The battlement walls of this house diminished towards the high apex of a very steep roof by steps, as we are all so much accustomed to see, and the whole was surmounted by an iron weathercock, that was perched on a rod of some elevation. It was always a matter of importance with the Dutch to know which way the wind blew; nor did it comport with their habits of minute accuracy, to trust to the usual indications of the feeling on the skin, the bending of branches, the flying of clouds, or the driving of smoke; but they must and would have the certainty of a machine, that was constructed expressly to let them know the fact. Smoke might err, but a weathercock would not! No one was in the little parlour into which I was shown by the servant who admitted me to the house, and in whom I recognised Herman Mordaunt's principal male attendant, of the household in New York. How pleasantly did that little room appear to me, in the minute or two that I was left in it alone. There lay the very shawl that Anneke had on, the day I met her in the Pinkster Field; and a pair of gloves that it seemed to me no other hands but hers were small enough to wear, had been thrown on the shawl, carelessly, as one casts aside a thing of that sort, in a hurry. A dozen other articles were put here and there, that denoted the habits and presence of females of refinement. But the gloves most attracted my attention, and I must needs rise and examine them. It is true, these gloves might belong to Mary Wallace, for she, too, had a pretty little hand, but I fancied they belonged to Anneke. Under this impression, I raised them to my lips, and was actually pressing them there, with a good deal of romantic feeling, when a light footstep in the room told me I was not alone. Dropping the gloves, I turned and beheld Anneke herself. She was regarding me with an expression of countenance I did not then know how to interpret, and which I now hardly know how to describe. In the first place, her charming countenance was suffused with blushes, while her eyes were filled with an expression of softened interest, that caused my heart to beat so violently, that I did not know but it would escape by the channel of the throat. How near I was to declaring all I felt, at that moment; of throwing myself at the feet of the dear, dear creature, and of avowing how much and engrossingly she had filled both my waking and sleeping thoughts during