"You certainly are not, my dearest Fanny--you are a charming young lady--the most delicious of your sex." And Mr. Ralph Ashley accompanied these words with a glance so ludicrously languishing, that Fanny, unable to command herself, burst into laughter; and the quarrel was all made up, if quarrel it indeed had been. "You _were_ a child in old times," said Mr. Ashley, throwing his foot elegantly over his knee; "and, I recollect, had a perfect genius for blindman's-buff; but, of course, at sixteen you have 'put away' all those infantile or 'childish things'--though I am sincerely rejoiced to see that you have not 'become a man.'" Fanny laughed. "I wish I was," she said. "What?" "Why a man." "Oh! you're very well as you are;--though if you were a 'youth,' I'm sure, Fanny dear, I should be desperately fond of you." "Quite likely." "Oh, nothing truer; and everybody would say, 'See the handsome friends.' Come now, would'nt we make a lovely couple." "Lovely!" "Suppose we try it." "Try what?" "Being a couple." Fanny suddenly caught, from the laughing eye, the young man's meaning, and began to color. "I see you understand, my own Fanny," observed Mr. Ralph, "and I expected nothing less from a young lady of your quickness. What say you? It is not necessary for me to say that I'm desperately in love with you." "Oh, not at all necessary!" replied Fanny, satirically, but with a blush. "I see you doubt it." "Oh, not at all." "Which means, as usual with young ladies, that you don't believe a word of it. Well, only try me. What proof will you have?" Fanny laughed with the same expression of constraint which we have before observed, and said: "You have not looked upon the map of Virginia yet for my 'boundaries?'" Ralph received the hit full in the front. "By Jove! Fanny," he exclaimed, "I oughtn't to have told you that." "I'm glad you did." "Why?" "Because, of course, I shall not make any efforts to please you--you are already 'engaged!'" "Engaged! well, you are wrong. Neither my heart nor my hand is engaged. Ah, dear Fanny, you don't know how we poor students carry away with us to college some consuming passion which we feed and nurture;--how we toast the Dulcinea at oyster parties, and, like Corydon, sigh over her miniature. I had yours!" "My--miniature?" said the lively Fanny, with a roseate blush, "you had nothing of the sort." "Your likeness, then." "Equally untrue--where is it?" "Here!" said Mr. Ralph Ashley, laying his hand upon his heart, and ogling Miss Fanny with terrible expression. "Ah, Fanny, darling, don't believe that story I relate about myself--never has any one made any impression on me--for my heart--my love--my thoughts--have always--" Suddenly the speaker became silent, and rising to his feet, made a courteous and graceful bow. A young lady had just appeared at the door. CHAPTER XXVI. THE NECKLACE. This was Redbud.