There was a general call. Gabriel could not help rising, and blushing, and bowing, and stuttering, and sitting down again, amidst tempestuous applause, without the slightest coherent idea of what he had said, except that he was very happy, and very glad, and very sure, and very, etc., etc. But he did not care a song for what he had said, nor for the applause that greeted it, when he saw certain blue eyes glistening, and a soft shyness upon certain cheeks and lips, as if they had themselves been speaking, and had been saying--what was palpably, undeniably, conspicuously true--that they were very happy, and very glad, and very sure, and very, etc., etc. Very, indeed! CHAPTER LIX. MRS. ALFRED DINKS. It was but a few days after the dinner that the junior partner was taking the old path that led under the tower of the fairy princess, when lo! he met her in the way. In her eyes there was that sweet light of expectation and happiness which illuminated all Gabriel's thoughts of her, and persuaded him that he was the happiest and unworthiest of men. "Where are you going, May?" "I am going to Fanny's." "May I go too?" May Newt looked at him and said, gravely, "No, I am going to ask Little Malacca to go with me." "Oh, very well," replied Mr. Gabriel Bennet, with equal gravity. "What splendid, melancholy eyes he has!" said May, with unusual ardor. "Ah! you think so?" "Of course I do, and such hair! Why, Mr. Bennet, did you ever see such magnificent hair--" "Oh, you like black hair?" "And his voice--" "Now, May--" "Well, Sir." "Please--" What merry light in the fairy eyes! What dazzling splendor of love and happiness in the face that turned to his as he laid her arm in his own! One would have thought she, too, had been admitted a junior partner in some most prosperous firm. They passed along the street, which was full of people, and Gabriel and May unconsciously looked at the crowd with new eyes and thoughts. Can it be possible that all these people are so secretly happy as two that we know? thought they. "All my life," said Gabriel to himself, without knowing it, "have I been going up and down, and never imagined how much honey there was hived away in all the hearts of which I saw only the rough outside?" "All my life," mused May, with sweet girl-eyes, "have I passed lovers as if they were mere men and women?" And under her veil, where no eye could see, her cheek was flushed, and her eyes were sweeter.