"Something seems to whisper to me that he is thinking of it to-night, mommer! Ah! the Lord send he may! Wouldn't we be happy? Valley would have a place in the same store with me; it would suit him, too; he has so much good taste! And then we could have such a pretty little home of our own! 'Deed, I believe he is thinking about it now. Look at him. I shouldn't be the least surprised to see him call Valley aside, and clap him on the shoulder, and call him 'old fellow,' and tell him he is a free man!" The girl had read aright the thoughts of the master. Angels, who saw the future, with all the phantoms of its bright or dark possibilities--angels, who loved the goodness latent in his own abused nature--angels were whispering to him: "Make this young couple supremely happy--give him only the common right to himself, into which every creature is justly born--and then rejoice in their exceeding great joy!" And never had the face of Oswald Waring looked so bright, benignant and happy, as when he, for a moment, entertained this thought. "But pshaw!" he said to himself, directly. "Am I Don Quixote the younger, that I should be guilty of such a piece of extravagant generosity? Absurd! I really must begin to learn moderation at some time of my life. St. Paul says: 'Let your moderation be known unto all men.'" Now, what on earth can the angels reply, when the other party quotes Scripture against them? Nothing, of course; and Oswald Waring had no more generous impulses that evening. But oh! if he had only listened to those angel whispers; if he had only realized poor little Fannie's romance; if he had only, for once in his life, yielded to his impulse to commit that mad, rash, extravagant piece of Quixotism, as he called the act which, for a moment, he had dreamed of performing--from what impending anguish, what temptations, crime, and remorse, would they not have been redeemed! CHAPTER V. A CLOUDED HONEYMOON. It had been arranged, as the best plan for all parties, under present circumstances, that Fannie should retain her situation as shop-woman at Leroux's hair-dressing and fancy store, where they were anxious to keep her as long as possible. With Valentine's hundred dollars, and fifty dollars that had been made in overwork by Phædra, a room was taken in M----, and neatly furnished. And there Valentine and Fannie went to housekeeping, after this fashion: Fannie, still tending Leroux's shop all day, ate and slept at home, where Valentine visited her once a week, or oftener, whenever he could do so.