“Oh, Miss Newt,” interrupted Zephyr, “how can you say such things? Hear me but one word. I assure you that I most deeply, tenderly, truly—”
“Mr. Wetherley,” said Fanny, putting down the book and speaking very firmly, “I really can not sit still and hear you proceed. You are laboring under a great misapprehension. You must be aware that I have never in the slightest way given you occasion to believe that I—”
“I must speak!” burst in the impetuous Zephyr. “My feelings forbid silence! Great Heavens! Miss Newt, you really have no idea—I am sure you have no idea—you can not have any idea of the ardor with which for a long, long time I have—”
“Mr. Wetherley,” said Fanny Newt, darker and cooler than ever, “it is useless to prolong this conversation. I can not consent to hear you declare that—”
“But you haven’t heard me declare it,” replied Zephyr, vehemently. “It’s the very thing I am trying to do, and you won’t let me. You keep cutting me off just as I am saying how I—”
“You need go no further, Sir,” said Miss Newt, coldly, rising and standing by the table; while Zephyr Wetherley, red and hot and confused, crushed his handkerchief into a ball, and swept his hand through his hair, wagging his foot, and rubbing his fingers together. “I understand, Sir, what you wish to say, and I desire to tell you only—”
“Just what I don’t want to hear! Oh dear me! Please, please, Miss Newt!” entreated Zephyr Wetherley.
“Mr. Wetherley,” interrupted the other, imperiously, “you wish to ask me to marry you. I desire to spare you the pain of my answer to that question by preventing your asking it.”
Mr. Wetherley was confounded. He wrinkled his brows doubtfully a moment—he stared at the floor and at Miss Newt—he looked foolish and mortified. “But—but—but—” stammered he. “Well—but—why—but—haven’t you somehow answered the question?” inquired he, with gleams of doubtful intelligence shooting across his face.
Fanny Newt smiled icily.
“As you please,” said she.
Poor Zephyr was bewildered.
“It is very confusing, somehow, Miss Newt, isn’t it?” said he, wiping his face.
“Yes, Mr. Wetherley; one should always look before he leaps.”
“Yes, yes; oh, indeed, yes. A man had better look out, or—”
“Or he’ll catch a Tartar!” said a clear, strange voice.
Fanny Newt and Wetherley turned simultaneously toward the speaker. It was a young man, with clustering black hair and sparkling eyes, in a traveling dress. He stood in the back room, which he had entered through the conservatory.
“Abel!” said his sister, running toward him, and pulling him forward.
“Mr. Wetherley, this is my brother, Mr. Abel Newt.”
The young men bowed.
“Oh, indeed!” said Zephyr. “How’d he come here listening?”
“Chance, chance, Mr. Wetherley. I have just returned from school. Pretty tough old school-boy, hey? Well, it’s all the grandpa’s doing. Grandpas are extraordinary beings, Mr. Wetherley. Now there was—”
“Oh, indeed! Really, I must go. Good-morning, Miss Newt. Good-morning, Sir.” And Mr. Zephyr Wetherley departed.
The brother and sister laughed.
“Sensible fellow,” said Abel; “he flies the grandpas.”
“How did you come here, you wretch!” asked Fanny, “listening to my secrets?”
“My dear, I arrived this morning, only half an hour ago. I let myself in by my pass-key, and, hearing voices in the parlor, I went round by the conservatory to spy out the land. Then and there I beheld this spectacle. Fanny, you’re wonderful.”
Miss Newt made a demure courtesy.
“So you’ve really come home for good? Well, Abel, I’m glad. Now you’re here I shall have a man of my own to attend me next winter. And there’s to be the handsome Boston bride here, you know, next season.”
“Who is she?” said Abel, laughing, sinking into a chair. “Mother wrote me you said that all Boston girls are dowdy. Who is the dowdy of next winter?”
“Mrs. Alfred Dinks,” replied Fanny, carelessly, but looking with her keenest glance at Abel.
He, sprang up and began to say something; but his sister’s eye arrested him.
“Oh yes,” said he, hurriedly—“Dinks, I’ve heard about Alfred Dinks. What a devil of a name!”
“Come, dear, you’d better go up stairs and see mamma,” said Fanny; “and I’m so sorry you missed Aunt Dagon. She was here this morning, lovely as ever. But I think the velvet is wearing off her claws.”
Fanny Newt laughed a cold little laugh. Abel went out of the room.
“Master Abel, then, does know Miss Hope Wayne,” said she to herself. “He more than knows her—he loves her—or thinks he does. Wouldn’t he have known if she had been engaged to her cousin?”
She pondered a little while.
“I don’t believe,” thought Miss Fanny, “that she is engaged to him.”
Miss Fanny was pleased with that thought, because she meant to be engaged to him herself, if it proved to be true, as every body declared, that he had ten or fifteen thousand a year.
CHAPTER XIV. — A NEW YORK MERCHANT.
Mr. Lawrence Newt, the brother of Boniface, sat in his office. It was upon South Street, and the windows looked out upon the shipping in the East River—upon the ferry-boats incessantly crossing—upon the lofty city of Brooklyn opposite, with its spires. He heard the sailors sing—the oaths of the stevedores—the bustle of the carts, and the hum and scuffle of the passers-by. As he sat at his table he saw the ships haul into the stream—the little steamers that puffed alongside bringing the passengers; then, if the wind were not fair, pulling and shoving the huge hulks into a space large enough for them to manage themselves in.
Sometimes he watched the parting of passengers at the wharf when the wind was fair, and the ship could sail from her berth. The vast sails were slowly unfurled, were shaken out, hung for a few moments, then shook lazily, then filled round and full with the gentle, steady wind. Mr. Lawrence Newt laughed as he watched, for he thought of fine ladies taking their hair out of curl-papers, and patting and smoothing and rolling it upon little sticks and over little fingers until the curls stood round and full, and ready for action.
Then the ship moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, from the wharf—so slowly, so imperceptibly, that the people on board thought the city was sliding away from them. The merchant saw the solid, trim, beautiful vessel turn her bow southward and outward, and glide gently down the river. Her hull was soon lost to his eyes, but he could see the streamer fluttering at the mast-head over the masts of the other vessels. While he looked it vanished—the ship was gone.
Often enough Mr. Lawrence Newt stood leaning his head against the window-frame of his office after the ship had disappeared, and seemed to be looking at the ferry-boats or at the lofty city of Brooklyn. But he saw neither. Faster than ship ever sailed, or wind blew, or light flashed, the thought of