All this gave Mary, for reasons of her own, great concern,—far greater concern than an average girl would have felt. What those reasons were I shall explain at the proper time. Suffice it to say at present, that just in proportion as her interest in this singular man deepened did her anxiety as to his religious views grow keener. The time had come, at last, when she felt that she had the right to question him; but the very thought (though ever in her mind) of asking him why he never went to church made her shiver. Strange! Now that he was her avowed lover, her awe of him was greater than ever before. He was now frank, joyous, playful— But even when a caged lion is romping with his mate, you shall ofttimes see the glitter of his mighty teeth! CHAPTER LV. My grandfather was looking serious. Mr. Carter had come down from Richmond, and, next day, the great American Undulator and Boneless Vertebrate was to leave Elmington, taking with her Alice and Mary; and these notable Christmas holidays would come to an end. It was late in the afternoon of one of those delicious days in February, which every year (in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave) delude us with the hope of an early spring (though we all know that we never have any spring, late or early); deceiving even yonder pair of bluebirds, who, warmed into forgetfulness of that March which lies between them and the abundant and nutritious worm of summer, go gallivanting up and down the orchard, chirruping eternal fidelity; peering into this old tree and into that, in quest of some hollow knot, so suggestive (to the bluebirdish mind) of matrimony. Where Charley and Alice were on this bright afternoon does not much matter. No doubt they were together and happy; or, if wretched, wretched with that sweet wretchedness which makes the tearful partings of young lovers so truly delicious. There’s your Araminta. Nineteen years of her life had she passed, ignorant of your existence. T’other day you met; and now, she who gave you not so much as a sigh during all those nineteen years, cannot hear you speak of a month’s absence but she distils upon your collar the briny tear! She has found out during the last few days, your Araminta, that she cannot breathe where you are not. Absurd Araminta—but nice? Wherever else they may have been, they were not in the Argo. The Don and Mary were there; and in the then infancy of naval architecture row-boats were not built large enough to hold, comfortably, two pairs of lovers. Mary was seated in the boat, he lounging around it; now leaning against the gunwale, now stalking idly to and fro in the shining sand, rejoicing in his youth. They talked of the passing sea-gulls, the twittering bluebirds, the rippling waves, the rosy clouds, the generous sunlight,—of everything, of nothing, it mattered not; for love hath power to transfigure the plainest things.