Then the gentleman spoke, and Persis started, and blushed, and dropped a courtesy. She had forgotten that until now, and felt overcome with shame. “Good-day, my pretty maid,” said the gentleman; and as he spoke he stepped out of the coach and approached Persis. She saw, with half-dazzled eyes, his grand fair head, his queue tied with a blue silk ribbon, his jewelled knee-buckles and silk hose, his flowered waistcoat and the deep falls of lace over his long white hands. No such fine gentleman as this had ever come within her vision. She courtesied again, and looked up in his face when he reached her. Then she looked down again quickly, and the strange salt savor of the drift-wood, overpowering a sweet perfume about the stranger’s rich attire, came up in her blushing face. The gentleman looked very kind, and his eyes were very gay and blue, yet somehow she was frightened and abashed. It was as if he saw something within herself of which she had not dreamed, and suddenly forced her to see it also, to her own confusion. The gentleman laughed softly when she looked down. “Is it the first time you have had another pair of eyes for your looking-glass, little maid?” he asked, with a kind of mocking caress in his tone. Persis did not lift her eyes from the drift-wood. She blushed more deeply, and her sweet mouth trembled. “Nay, tease not the child. Ask if her father be in the house,” called the lady’s soft voice, with a little impatient ring in it, from the coach. “’Tis but the fault of my eyes, your ladyship,” retorted the gentleman, gayly. “They are ever as lakes reflecting flowers in the presence of beauty, and I doubt much if this little maid hath ever seen herself so clearly before--if eyes like mine have come in her way.” Persis’s mouth quivered more. She wanted to run away, and did not dare; but suddenly the gentleman spoke again, quite gravely and coldly, and all the gay banter in his voice was gone. “Is your father, Ichabod Buckley, within, my good maid?” he said. Persis felt as if a spell which had been cast over her were broken. She dropped a courtesy. “Please, sir, my father is yonder, cutting a weeping-willow on old Widow Nye’s gravestone,” she replied, pointing towards the rear of the house; and she spoke with that punctilious courtesy with which she had been taught to address strangers. “Will you bid him come this way? I would speak with him,” said the gentleman. “And bid him hasten, for this air from the sea is full cold for me!” called the lady from the coach. Persis dipped another affirmative courtesy towards her, then fled swiftly around the corner of the house. She met her mother and her sister Submit face to face, with a shock. They had been peeping around the corner at the grand folk. Rebecca had run into the house to put on her shoes and a clean kerchief, in case one of the elder women had to go forward to speak to them. “Father! the gentleman wants father,” said Persis, with soft pants. “Oh, mother!”