“Young ladies,” said he, walking up to Alice and Mary, and putting his arms around their waists, as they stood at a window, after dinner, admiring the moonbeams dancing on the waves,—“young ladies, do you know that Elmington is a very dangerous place?” “How, dangerous?” asked Mary. “Shipwrecks?” suggested Alice, nodding towards The River with a smile. “Yes,” replied he, stooping down and kissing them both with impartial cordiality,—“shipwrecks of hearts.” “I have lost mine already,” said Alice, laying her head on his shoulder and shutting her eyes, with a languishing smile on her upturned face. “Little hypocrite!” said he, patting her cheek. “Only a pat for such a speech?” “Well, there! So, Alice, your grandmother consented to let us have you this Christmas? It was but right, now that you are grown. And then she lives in such an out-of-the-way neighborhood.” “Yes, it was very kind in grandmamma to let me come here instead of spending my Christmas with her. She grows deafer every year, and I think—perhaps—I was going to make such a wicked speech!” And Alice dropped her eyes. “What dreadful thing were you going to say?” “I was thinking that, perhaps, bawling into one’s grandmother’s ear was not so pleasant a pastime, to a girl, as having—just for a change you know—a young fellow whispering in hers.” “Charley,” asked Mr. Whacker, suddenly, that night, as we sat before the library fire, after the newly-arrived guests had retired, “do you know, I can’t understand why, in speaking of the ladies you met in Richmond, you never so much as mentioned the name of Alice Carter?” I tried to catch Charley’s eye, but he durst not look me in the face. Seated as I was, therefore, rather behind my innocent relative, I clapped my hand upon my mouth, doubled myself up in my chair, and went through the most violent, though silent contortions of pantomimic laughter. Charley held his eye firmly fixed on my grandfather’s face, and affected, though with reddening face, not to observe my by-play. “D-D-D-Didn’t I?” Any kind of mental perturbation always brought on an attack of stammering with Charley. “Why, no; and yet I have never seen a more charming girl. She is positively fascinating. Don’t you admit it, you cold-hearted young wretch?” Here, a broad smile from the Don encouraging me to further exertions, my chair tilted, and I recovered myself with a bang. “What is the matter with you?” asked my grandfather, suddenly turning. Charley gave me a quick, imploring glance, and I had pity on him. “Give it to him, grandfather; he deserves it, every word,—the woman-hater!” “To be sure he does. Why, were I at his time of life—hey, Mr. Smith?” That night, after we had gone to bed, I was just dozing off into dreamland. Charley gave me a sudden dig in the ribs.