Arthur Merlin pulled his cap over his eyes and sauntered slowly homeward, whistling musingly, and murmuring, "A bird in the wilderness singing, That speaks to my spirit of thee." His Aunt Winnifred heard him as he came in. The good old lady had placed a fresh tract where he would be sure to see it when he entered his room. She heard his cautious step stealing up stairs, for the painter was careful to make no noise; and as she listened she drew pictures upon her fancy of the scenes in which her boy had been mingling. It was Aunt Winnifred's firm conviction that society--that is, the great world of which she knew nothing--languished for the smile and presence of her nephew, Arthur. That very evening her gossip, Mrs. Toxer, had been in, and Aunt Winnifred had discussed her favorite theme until Mrs. Toxer went home with a vague idea that all the young and beautiful unmarried women in the city were secretly pining away for love of Arthur Merlin. "Mercy me, now!" said Aunt Winnifred as she lay listening to the creaking step of her nephew. "I wonder what poor girl's heart that wicked boy has been breaking to-night;" and she turned over and fell asleep again. That young man reached his room, and struck a light. It flashed upon a paper. He took it up eagerly, then smiled as he saw that it was a tract, and read, "A word to the Unhappy." "Dear Aunt Winnifred!" said he to himself; "does she think a man's griefs are like a child's bumps and bruises, to be cured by applying a piece of paper?" He smiled sadly, with the profound conviction that no man had ever before really known what unhappiness was, and so tumbled into bed and fell asleep. And as he dreamed, Hope Wayne came to him and smiled, as Diana smiled in his picture upon Endymion. "See!" she said, "I love you; look here!" And in his dream he looked and saw a full moon in a summer sky shining upon a fresh grave upon a hill-top. CHAPTER LXXXI. MRS. ALFRED DINKS AT HOME. A new element had forced itself into the life of Hope Wayne, and that was the fate of Abel Newt. There was something startling in the direct, passionate, personal appeal he had made to her. She put on her bonnet and furs, for it was Christmas time, and passed the Bowery into the small, narrow street where the smell of the sewer was the chief odor and the few miserable trees cooped up in perforated boxes had at last been released from suffering, and were placidly, rigidly dead.