A Pair of Blue Eyes

ther di

plications, Elfride and Stephen returned down the hill hand in han

to the overwhelming idea of her lover's sorry antecedents; Stephen had not forgot

young man's nam

ay; a widow'

ber the

now. She says

and they ente

e pressed her fingers, and the trifling shadow passed aw

the inconcealable fact that reciprocal love was their dominant chord. Elfride perceived a man, sitting wi

tin Cannister, come for a copy of t

in digging up after long years the bodies of persons he had known, and recognizing them by some little sign (though in reality he had never r

ront of him, denoted that the business had been transacted, and the tenor of their conversation we

salutation of Elfride, gave half as much salute to Stephen (whom he, in common with other

d I got o

e pile,' said

re he gave the stick a slight shake, and looked firmly in the various eyes around to see that before proceeding further his listeners well grasped the subject at that stage. 'Well, when Nat had struck some half-dozen blows more upon the pile, 'a stopped for a second or two. John, thinking he had done striki

ful!' sai

sight of his hand, but couldn't stop the blow in time. Down came

th an intonation like the groans of the wounded in

aster-mason?' crie

better-hearted man Go

so much

noticing Stephen, 'that he has a son i

st be hurt!' r

e. Well, sir, good-night t'ye; and

emark came from his lips he was just outside the door of the room. He tramped along the hall, sta

hile turned and s

evening! I must leave.

d not compre

you say?'

father,' said St

ed, and his lips seemed to get thinner. It was evident that a series of little circumstances, hitherto unheeded, were now fitting themselve

aid, in a voice dry a

its tone for its meaning, Mr. Swancourt's enun

as if he scarcely knew whether he ought to run off or stay longer. 'On my

seem possible that there can be anything o

rther effort to perceive what, indeed, reasoning might have foretold as the natural colour of a mind whose pleasures were taken amid genealogies, good dinners, and patrician

whither to turn himself, went awkwardly to the door. Elfride followed lingeringly behind him. Before he had

h? The accident is not so bad as was rep

or says it is on

o!' cried El

st have done so without knowing it-checked it very considerably too; for the full blow

ul I am!' s

d at him with her mouth r

d Elfride magisterially; a

ith a faint smile. 'No man is fair in love;'

oach at his doubt and pressed his hand. Stephen returned the pressure threefol

this?' inquired her father, coming

to plead his cause. 'He had told me of it,' she faltered; 'so that it

very much like his making a fool of me, and of you too. You and he have been about together, and corresponding together, in a way I don't at all approve

pa, and have ne

on; and we, Swancourts, connections of the Luxellians. We have been coming to nothing for

h! And what he was going to ask you is, if you will allow of an engagement between us till he is a gentleman as good as you. We are not in a hurry,

ed that such should be the case. 'Certainly not!' he replied. He pronounced the

no; don't

aced by having him here,-the son of one of my village peasants,-but now

e he has been here you have let him be alone with me almost entirely; and you guessed, you must have guessed, what we were thin

might arise between you; I own I did not take much trouble to prevent it; but I have not particularly countenanced it;

e in every particular; and how can he

-do friends, and a little property; b

ed nothing

oung man himself; of course he should. I consider it a most dishonourabl

He came here on business: it was no affair of ours who his parents were. And then he knew that if he told you he would never be asked here, and would perhaps never see me again. And he wanted to see me. W

on as the laws of hospitality will allow.' But Mr. Swancourt then remembered that he was a Christian. 'I would not, for the world, see

; though perhaps Stephen's manners, like the feats of Euryalus, owed their attractiven

open. And he might have picked up his gentlemanliness by going to the galleries of theatres, and wat

tory wa

n't tell you such an impro

arded-HIM, and not THEM! His station-would have-been what-his profession makes it,-and not fixed by-his father's humble position-at all; whom he never lives with-now. Though John Smith has saved

f beasts, and his crib shall

urst out. 'You do, you do! H

orking-man in my parish who may or may not be able to buy me up-a youth who has not yet advanced so far into life as to have any income of his own deserving the name, and therefore of his father's degree as regards station-wants to be engaged to you. His family are living in precisely the same spot in England as yours, so throughout this

elessly out of the window with

ou were deceived as well as I was. I don't blame you at all, so far.' He went and searched for Mr. Hewby's original letter. 'Here's what he said to me: "Dear Sir,-Agreeably to your request of the 18th instant,

cause they do not write. Stephen-Mr. Smith-told me

ANKS FOR YOUR PROPOSAL TO ACCOMMODATE HIM...YOU MAY PUT EVERY CONFIDENCE IN HIM, and may rely upon his discernment in the matter

ants who come to their offices and shops for years, and hardly even know where they live. What they can do-what profits they

than a faculty. It shows that a man has

and not by sight, as those you

ied palate is the irrepressible cloven foot of the upstart. The idea of my bringing out a bottle of my '40 Martinez-only eleven of them left now-to a man who didn't know it from eighteenpenny! Then the Latin line he gave to my quotation;

aching to miserable love, the worst is the misery of thinki

ow. A scheme to benefit you and me. It has been thrust upon me for some little time-yes, thrust upon me-but I didn't

arily. 'You have lost so much already by

a minin

ilw

g till it is settled, though I will just say this much, that you soon may have other fish to fry than to think of Stephen Smith. Remember, I wish, not to be angry, but friendly, to the young man; for your sake I'll regard