My grandfather placed his hand upon his heart and bent low over the table, amid the approving plaudits of the company. Charley did the same. “There are two of us,” he explained; “Uncle T-T-Tom and myself.” “He is laughing now; how he seems to admire Mr. Frobisher! But why did he turn pale, just now, at the mention of Lucy’s name? I have never read anywhere of love’s producing that effect, certainly. Perhaps—perhaps, after all, he did not change color. My imagination, doubtless. No, I am not mistaken! Why, his brow is actually beaded with perspiration! incomprehensible enigma! would to heaven I had never met him! and yet—” If any of my young readers shall be so indiscreet as to fall in love with enigmas, let them not lay the folly to my charge. I most solemnly warn them against it. Poor little Mary watched the Don all that day with that scrutiny so piercing, and yet so unobtrusive, of which a woman’s eye alone is capable,—hopefully fearing to discover the truth of what she fearfully hoped was not true; but it was not before the sun had sunk low in the west, and she had begun to convince herself of the illusory character of her observations at the breakfast-table, that she got such reward as that of the woman who, after twenty years’ searching, at last found a burglar under her bed. As the time approached at which the Poythress family should arrive (at their home across the river), my grandfather would go out upon the piazza every few minutes, and after looking across the broad river return and report that there were no signs of the carriage. “It is not yet time by half an hour,” said Charley, looking at his watch. “At any rate I’ll get the telescope and have it ready,” replied he, as he passed into the dining-room; returning, bearing in his hand one of those long marine glasses so much used at that time. “This is a remarkably fine glass,” said he to the Don. The Don was seated behind Alice’s chair, helping her to play her hand at whist, if that name be applicable to a rattling combination of cards, conversation, and bursts of laughter. “Last summer,” continued Mr. Whacker, “I counted with it a hen and seven small chickens on the Poythress’s lawn—” “Mr. Frobisher!” cried Alice. “There you are trumping my ace!” “Charley!” exclaimed Mr. Whacker, with reproachful surprise. “And, Uncle Tom, would you believe it,—he has made three revokes already? What ought to be done to such a partner?” Jones, who ought to have been back at the University long since, was, on the contrary, seated at a neighboring card-table. He remembered the scrape that Charley had gotten him into on Christmas Eve. “I don’t think,” said he, soliloquizing, as he slowly dealt out the cards, “that I could love a partner who revoked.” A smile ran around the tables. Charley bit his lip. “What, Charley!” exclaimed Mr. Whacker. “The ace of trumps second in hand, and you had another!” “I wanted to take that particular trick,” said Charley, doggedly.