"Yea, love is dead, and by her funeral bier Ambition gnaws the lips, and sheds no tears; And, in the outer chamber Hope sits wild,-- Hope, with her blue eyes dim with looking long." CHAPTER VII. "Ulpian, why do you look so grave and grieved? Does your letter contain bad news?" Miss Jane pushed back her spectacles and glanced anxiously at her brother, who stood with his brows slightly knitted, twirling a crumpled envelope between his fingers. "It is not a letter, but a telegraphic dispatch, summoning me to the death-bed of my best friend, Horace Manton." "The man whose life you saved at Madeira?" "Yes; and the person to whom, above all other men, I am most strongly and tenderly attached. His constitution is so feeble that I have long been uneasy about him; but the end has come even earlier than I feared." "Where does he live?" "On the Hudson, a few miles above New York City. I have no time to spare, for I shall take the train that leaves at one o'clock, and must make some arrangement with Dr. Sheldon to attend my patients. Will it trouble or tire you too much to pack my valise while I write a couple of business letters? If so, I will call Salome to assist you." "Trouble me, indeed! Nonsense, my dear boy; of course I will pack your valise. Moreover, Salome is not at home. How long will you be absent?" "Probably a week or ten days,--possibly longer. If poor Horace lingers, I shall remain with him." "Wait one moment, Ulpian. Before you go I want to speak to you about Salome." "Well, Janet, I lend you my ears. Has the girl absolutely turned pagan and set up an altar to Ceres, as she threatened some weeks since? Take my word for the fact that she does not believe or mean one half that she says, and is only amusing herself by trying to discover how wide her audacious heresies can expand your dear orthodox eyes. Expostulation and entreaty only feed her affected eccentricities and skepticism, and if you will persistently and quietly ignore them, they will shrivel as rapidly as a rank gourd-vine, uprooted on an August day." "Pooh! pooh! my dear boy. How you men do prate sometimes of matters concerning which you are as ignorant as the yearling calves and gabbling geese that I suppose your learned astronomers see driven every day to pasture on that range of mountains in the moon--Eratosthenes--that modern science pretends to have discovered, and about which you read so marvellous a paper last week." Miss Jane reverently clung to the dishonored remnants of the Ptolemaic theory, and scouted the philosophy of Copernicus which she vehemently averred was not worth "a pinch of snuff," else the water in the well would surely run out once in every twenty-four hours. Now, as she dived into the depths of her stocking-basket, collecting the socks neatly darned and rolled over each other, her brother smiled, and answered, good humoredly,--