About a week after Mr. and Mrs. Lang's return, Mr. Leopold, who had accompanied them, came back; and Miss Darry intimated that it would be well for me to inform him of our engagement. I said to him, therefore, rather abruptly one afternoon, as I was about leaving to seek Miss Darry, (who was never quite ready to see me, if my painting-hours were abridged,)-- "Mr. Leopold, I have sold my forge to-day. I wanted to ask your advice about the course to be pursued in town; but I am under orders now of the most binding kind, I am engaged to Miss Darry." Mr. Leopold was busy at his easel, his profile toward me. I was certainly not mistaken; the blood rushed over his face, subsided, leaving it very pale, and he made a quick, nervous movement which overthrew his palette. He rose quietly and replaced it, however, saying, in his usual tone,-- "Very well, Sandy. I am ready to help you in any way I can." "But you do not--no one congratulates me," I said, deceived by his calmness, and supposing the momentary suspicion that his was the love rejected by Miss Darry must have been a mistaken one. "If they do not, it is not because of any lack appreciation for either of you," he answered slowly, "but that they fail to see the point of union. I admire the pine; it is straight, strong, self-reliant, and yet wind-haunted by many tender and melancholy sentiments; I like the peach-tree, too, with its pink tufts of fanciful blooming in the spring-time: but if these two should grow side by side, I am not sure but I should wonder a little." His smile, as he looked me full in the eye, had genuine good-will mingled with its humor; and it softened the indignation I felt at the implied comparison. "You make me out the weaker vessel of the two, then?" I asked, resentfully. "No, Sandy, I don't say that; possibly, as whatever power we have runs parallel with Providential forces or against them, it makes mortal strength or weakness. But may you become a truly noble man, if you are to be Miss Darry's husband!" he answered, rising and extending his hand. I believe he was one to scorn a lack of self-control in himself; but I do not think he cared either to reveal or to hide the love which I read at that moment. I grasped his hand as cordially as it was given, and hurried down stairs, out of the door, and over the hill, with a strong conviction that Miss Darry was a mistaken and foolish woman, and a prompting to disinterestedness not quite compatible with my relations to her. I was in no mood for her society, so I resolved to delay seeing her until evening, and conclude my arrangements at the forge, as I was to go to the city the next week. Approaching the village, I overtook Miss Dinsmore; and though my new pretensions had not increased my popularity among the villagers, I had reason to consider her my firm friend and advocate; so I was quite willing to escape my unpleasant train of thought in listening to her.