In the mean time my uncle selected a very neat seal, the handsomest he had, being of pure metal, and having a real topaz in it, and offered it to Mary Warren, with his best bow. I watched the clergyman's daughter with anxiety, as I witnessed the progress of this _galanterie_, doubting and hoping at each change of the ingenuous and beautiful countenance of her to whom the offering was made. Mary coloured, smiled, seemed embarrassed, and, as I feared, for a single moment doubting; but I must have been mistaken, as she drew back, and, in the sweetest manner possible, declined to accept the present. I saw that Opportunity's having just adopted a different course added very much to her embarrassment, as otherwise she might have said something to lessen the seeming ungraciousness of the refusal. Luckily for herself, however, she had a gentleman to deal with, instead of one in the station that my uncle Ro had voluntarily assumed. When this offering was made, the pretended pedlar was ignorant altogether of the true characters of the clergyman and his daughter, not even knowing that he saw the rector of St. Andrew's, Ravensnest. But the manner of Mary at once disabused him of an error into which he had fallen through her association with Opportunity, and he now drew back himself with perfect tact, bowing and apologizing in a way that I thought must certainly betray his disguise. It did not, however; for Mr. Warren, with a smile that denoted equally satisfaction at his daughter's conduct, and a grateful sense of the other's intended liberality, but with a simplicity that was of proof, turned to me and begged a tune on the flute which I had drawn from my pocket and was holding in my hand, as expecting some such invitation. If I have any accomplishment, it is connected with music; and particularly with the management of the flute. On this occasion I was not at all backward about showing off, and I executed two or three airs, from the best masters, with as much care as if I had been playing to a salon in one of the best quarters of Paris. I could see that Mary and her father were both surprised at the execution, and that the first was delighted. We had a most agreeable quarter of an hour together; and might have had two, had not Opportunity--who was certainly well named, being apropos of everything--began of her own accord to sing, though not without inviting Mary to join her. As the latter declined this public exhibition, as well as my uncle Ro's offering, Seneca's sister had it all to herself; and she sang no less than three songs, in quick succession, and altogether unasked. I shall not stop to characterize the music or the words of these songs, any further than to say they were all, more or less, of the Jim Crow school, and executed in a way that did them ample justice.