“Ah, they are going to play!” said my grandfather, quickly; and he turned to go into the parlor, followed by all of the promenaders save Charley and Alice, who still strode to and fro, arm in arm. “They are going to play,” repeated he, as he got to the door, turning and nodding to Charley, and then passed briskly within. At this some of the girls smiled, and Charley reddened, poor fellow, and bit his lip; while Alice gazed, unconscious, at two specks of boats in the distance. Suddenly Mr. Whacker reappeared, thrusting his ruddy countenance and snowy hair between the fair heads of two girls who were just entering the door,—a pleasing picture. “The Kreutzer Sonata!” he ejaculated at Charley, and disappeared. At this the two girls fairly giggled aloud, and, darting Parthian glances at Alice, tumbled through the hall into the parlor. “What merry, thoughtless creatures we girls are!” said Alice, removing her gaze from the specks of sails. “Yes, and no fellow can find out, half the time, what you are laughing about,—or thinking about, for the matter of that.” “What! do _you_ deem us such riddles,—you who, they say, can read one’s thoughts as though we were made of glass?” “I? And who says that of me, pray?” “Everybody says it. _I_ say it,” she added, with a smile of saucy defiance. “I read people’s thoughts!” “Do you disclaim the gift?” “Even to disclaim it would be preposterously vain.” Charley would have avoided that word “preposterous” had he bethought him, in time, how many p’s it contained. His face was red when he had stumbled and floundered through it, and his eyes a trifle stern. He had been a stammerer from boyhood, but of late his infirmity had begun to annoy him strangely. “Then, modest young man, I suppose you have yet to learn the alphabet of mind-reading?” “Yes,—that is, women’s minds.” “Women’s minds? Do you think that we are harder to read than men? Do you think, for example, that people find it harder to see through such an unsophisticated girl as myself than such a deep philosopher as you?” “You? Why, you are an unfathomable m-m-m-mystery?” (“Confound it!”) “The idea! I a mystery? And this from you, unreadable sphinx!” “Yes, and unfathomable! Why, I have no idea what you think upon the—upon—well, all sorts of subjects.” Charley caressed with a shy glance the toes of his boots, and felt red. “Indeed? How strange!” And she gazed upon the dots of boats and felt pale. “Yes; for example, I have often wondered what in fact, for example, you thought, for instance, of—of—of—me, for instance. Oh, no, no, of course not, I beg your pardon; of course I never imagined for a moment, of course not, that you ever thought of me at all, in fact. What I mean is, that whenever you did think of me,—though I presume you never did for an instant, of course,—I mean that if by chance, when you had nothing else to think about, and I happened to pass by—Oh, Lord!” cried Charley, clasping in his hand his burning brow.