"I believe I have nothing to communicate just now," was the quiet and unsatisfactory answer, as he drew a pencil from his pocket and made some numeral annotations on the margin of the statistics. "Surely, Merton, you are not angry with your poor Constance?" Merton Minge lowered his paper, restored the pencil to his vest pocket, and wheeling his chair forward, brought himself closer to the couch. "I wish you were as far removed from fever as I certainly am from anger. Your eyes are too bright, my pretty one." He put his fingers on her pulse, and when he removed them, compressed his lips to stifle a sigh. "Why will you so persistently evade me?--why will you always change the subject when I allude to that young lady?" "Because, when a man attains the sober and discreet age of forty years, he naturally and logically thinks he has earned, and is entitled to, an exemption from the petty teasing to which sophomores and sentimentalists are subjected. While I gratefully appreciate the compliment implied in your forgetfulness, permit to remind you of the disagreeable fact that I am no longer a boy." "You lose sight of that same ugly and ill-mannered fact, much more frequently than I am in danger of doing; and I affectionately suggest that you stimulate your own torpid memory. Ah, brother! why will you not be frank, and confide in me? Women are not easily hoodwinked, except by their lovers,--and you can not deceive me in this matter." "What pleasure do you suppose it would afford me to practice deceit of any kind towards my only sister? To what class of motives could you credit such conduct?" "I think you shrink from acknowledging your real feelings, because you very well know that I could never sanction or consent to them." Mr. Minge arched his heavy brows, and the sternly drawn lines of his large mouth relaxed, and threatened to run into curves that belonged to the ludicrous, as he turned his twinkling eyes upon his sister's face. "What extraordinary hallucinations attack even sage, sedate, middle-aged men? Ten minutes ago I would have sworn I was your guardian; whereas, it seems your apron-strings are the reins that rule me. Don't pout, my Czarina, if I demand your credentials before I bow submissively to your _ukase_." "Irony is not your forte; and, Merton, I beg you to recollect that I detest bantering,--it is so excessively ungenteel. No wonder you look nervous and ashamed, after your recent very surprising manifestation of--well, I might as well say what I mean--of _mauvais gout_." Constance Minge impatiently threw off the light worsted shawl that rested on her shoulders, and propped her cheek on her jewelled hand. Her brother's countenance clouded, and his lips hardened, but after one keen look at her flushed features, he once more resumed the perusal of the paper. Some moments elapsed, and his sister sobbed, but he took no notice of the sound. "Merton, I never expected you would treat me so cruelly."