“Hang me if ever I saw any difference between Solomon the king, and Solimaun the caliph; Abraham the patriarch, and Aroun the pacha, in that respect,” laughed the young man, until, stealing a furtive glance at the cold and haughty face of Clifton, he held out his hand, and suddenly exclaimed—“Pardon me, Clifton! or call me out! I—can’t help a jest, to save my soul! but I’ll fight or apologize, or render any other sort of satisfaction afterwards!” Captain Clifton remembered that Francis Fairfax was his guest, going to spend a long mid-summer furlough at his mother’s house, and so he cleared his brow and answered— “Nonsense!” “Now tell me about Henry VIII.’s fourth Queen—how long has she been married—I mean the present Mrs. Clifton?” “About two years. My uncle wedded her when she was fifteen—she is now seventeen—and, as I said, the most beautiful creature that you, or I, or any one else, ever did, or ever shall see, anywhere.” “_Allons_—stop there! False knight and recreant! whose colors do you wear while you uphold the peerless beauty of Georgia? What would Miss Clifton of Clifton say to your admiration?” “Ridiculous, sir! Miss Clifton is herself very beautiful but not the _most_ beautiful. Miss Clifton has _other_ and _rarer_ distinctions, I am proud to say?” “Oh, I understand—her family _name_!—nevertheless, be hanged if I don’t believe you have been in love with Georgia!” “Impossible, sir! The perfect beauty of the young girl struck me forcibly, as it strikes _all others_—nay, more—impressed my imagination deeply perhaps. I confess to a _penchant_ for female beauty—and—observe—it is the artist’s taste, sir, not the sultan’s. But in love with Georgia! Impossible, sir! She was a girl of humble parentage!” “Ah! then you think it quite ‘impossible’ that a gentleman born, should be in love with a girl of ‘humble parentage?’” “Preposterous, sir!—utterly preposterous! Pray, let us hear no more about it!” “Yet your uncle—” “My uncle married such an one, you would say. Old gentlemen, living on their own estates, will do such things. And the world charitably ascribes it to dotage, smiles and forgives them. You will oblige me by changing the subject, Frank.” Fairfax fell into reverie, and Clifton dropped into thought, and they rode on for some time in silence, and in—joy—until— “Floods and furies! Fire and flames!! Lightning and tempests, and sudden death!!!” exclaimed Fairfax, rearing and backing his horse with a terrible jerk, and throwing himself from the saddle, bathed in perspiration, and shaking with terror. “Look! Look there! There at your feet! Back! Back your horse, unless you wish to ride straight to the kingdom of Heaven, or—to the other place! Oh, blessed Lord! I shall never survive the shock!”