"What did she say? How did she mention it?" whispered he, confidentially.

"She did n't believe you were serious at first; she thought it a jest.

Why did you fall on your knees? it's never done now, except on the stage."

"How did I know that?" cried he, peevishly. "One ought to be proposing every day of the week to keep up with the fashions."

"If you had taken a chair at her side, a little behind hers, so as not to scrutinize her looks too closely, and stolen your hand gently forward, as if to touch the embroidery she was at work on, and then, at last, her hand, letting your voice grow lower and softer at each word, till the syllables would seem to drop, distilled from your heart--"

"The devil a bit of that I could do at all," cried he, impatiently. "If I can't make the game off the balls," said he, taking a metaphor from his billiard experiences, "I 'm good for nothing. But will she come round? Do you think she'll change?"

"No; I 'm afraid not," said she, shaking her head. "Faix! she might do worse," said he, resolutely. "Do you know that she might do worse? If the mortgages was off, O'Shea-Ville is seventeen hundred a year; and, for family, we beat the county."

"I 've no doubt of it," replied she, calmly. "There was ancestors of mine hanged by Henry the Second, and one was strangled in prison two reigns before," said he, proudly. "The O'Sheas was shedding their blood for Ireland eight centuries ago! Did you ever hear of Mortagh Dhub O'Shea?"

"Never!" said she, mournfully.

"There it is," sighed he, drearily; "mushrooms is bigger, nowadays, than oak-trees." And with this dreary reflection he arose and took his hat.

"Won't you dine here? I'm sure they expect you to stop for dinner," said she; but whether a certain devilry in her laughing eye made the speech seem insincere, or that his own distrust prompted it, he said,--

"No, I 'll not stop; I could n't eat a bit if I did."

"Come, come, you mustn't take it to heart in this way," said she, coaxingly.

"Do you think you could do anything for me?" said he, taking her hand in his; "for, to tell truth, it's my pride is hurt. As we say in the House of Commons, now that my name is on the Bill, I 'd like to carry it through. You understand that feeling?"

"Perhaps I do," said she, doubtfully, while, throwing herself into a chair, she leaned back, so as to display a little more than was absolutely and indispensably necessary of a beautifully rounded ankle and instep. Mr. O'Shea saw it, and marked it. There was no denying she was pretty,--pretty, too, in those feminine and delicate graces which have special attractions for men somewhat hackneyed in life, and a "little shoulder-sore with the collar" of the world. As the Member gazed at the silky curls of her rich auburn hair, the long fringes that shadowed her fair cheeks, and the graceful lines of her beautiful figure, he gave a sigh,--one of those a man inadvertently heaves when contemplating some rare object in a shop-window, which his means forbid him to purchase. It was only as he heaved a second and far deeper one, that she looked up, and with an arch drollery of expression all her own, said, as if answering him, "Yes, you are quite right; but you know you could n't afford it."

"What do you mean,--not afford what?" cried he, blushing deeply.

"Nor could I, either," continued she, heedless of his interruption.

"Faith, then," cried he, with energy, "it was just what I was thinking of."

"But, after all," said she, gravely, "it wouldn't do; privateers must never sail in company. I believe there's nothing truer than that."

He continued to look at her, with a strange mixture of admiration and astonishment.

"And so," said she, rising, "let us part good friends, who may hope each to serve the other one of these days. Is that a bargain?" And she held out her hand.

"I swear to it!" cried he, pressing his lips to her fingers. "And now that you know my sentiments--"

"Hush!" cried she, with a gesture of warning, for she heard the voices of servants in the corridor. "Trust me; and good-bye!"

"One ought always to have an Irishman amongst one's admirers," said she, as, once more alone, she arranged her ringlets before the glass; "if there's any fighting to be done, he's sure not to fail you."

CHAPTER XXIV. A DAY IN EARLY SPRING

That twilight of the year called spring, most delightful of all seasons, is scarcely known in Italy. Winter dies languidly away, and summer bursts forth at once, and in a few days the trees are clothed in full foliage, the tall grass is waving, and panting lizards sun themselves on the rocks over which so lately the mountain torrent was foaming. There are, however, a few days of transition, and these are inexpressibly delicious. The balmy air scented with the rose and the violet stirs gently through the olive-trees, shaking the golden limes amidst the dark leaves, and carrying away the sweet perfume on its breath; rivulets run bright and clear through rocky channels, mingling their murmurs with the early cicala. The acacia sheds its perfume on the breeze,--a breeze so faint, as though it loved to linger on its way; and so, above, the lazy clouds hang upon the mountains, or float in fragments out to sea, as day wears on. What vitality there is in it all!--the rustling leaves, the falling water, the chirping birds, the softly plashing tide, all redolent of that happy season,--the year's bright youth.

On such a day as this Alfred Layton strolled languidly through the grounds of Marlia. Three months of severe illness had worn him to a shadow, and he walked with the debility of one who had just escaped from a sick-room. The place was now deserted. The Heathcotes had gone to Rome for the winter, and the Villa was shut up and untenanted. It had been a cherished wish of poor Layton to visit the spot as soon as he could venture abroad; and Quackinboss, the faithful friend who had nursed him through his whole illness, had that day yielded to his persuasion and brought him there.

Who could have recognized the young and handsome youth in the broken-down, feeble, careworn man who now leaned over the palings of a little flower-garden, and gazed mournfully at a rustic bench beneath a lime-tree? Ay, there it was, in that very spot, one chapter of his life was finished. It was there she had refused him! He had no right, it is true, to have presumed so highly; there was nothing in his position to warrant such daring; but had she not encouraged him? That was the question; he believed so, at least. She had seen his devotion to her, and had not repulsed it. Nay, more, she had suffered him to speak to her of feelings and emotions, of hopes and fears and ambitions, that only they are led to speak who talk to willing ears. Was this encouragement, or was it the compassionate pity of one, to him, so friendless and alone? May certainly knew that he loved her. She had even resented his little passing attentions to Mrs. Morris, and was actually jealous of the hours he bestowed on Clara; and yet, with all this, she had refused him, and told him not to hope that, even with time, her feeling towards him should change. "How could it be otherwise?" cried he to himself.

"What was I, to have pretended so highly? Her husband should be able to offer a station superior to her own. So thought she, too, herself. How her words ring in my ears even yet: 'I _do_ love rank'! Yes, it was there, on that spot, she said it. I made confession of my love, and she, in turn, told me of _hers_; and it was the world, the great and gorgeous prize, for which men barter everything. And then her cold smile, as I said, 'What is this same rank you prize so highly; can I not reach it--win it?' 'I will not waste youth in struggle and conflict,' said she. 'Ha!' cried I, 'these words are not yours. I heard them one short week ago. I know your teacher now. It was that false-hearted woman gave you these precious maxims. It was not thus you spoke or felt when first I knew you, May.' 'Is it not well,' said she, 'that we have each grown wiser?' I heard no more. I have no memory for the passionate words I uttered, the bitter reproaches I dared to make her. We parted in anger, never to meet again; and then poor Clara, how I hear her faint, soft voice, as she found me sitting there alone, forsaken, as she asked me, 'May I take these flowers?' and oh! how bitterly she wept as I snatched them from her hand, and scattered them on the ground, saying, 'They were not meant for you!' 'Let me have one, dear Alfred,' said she, just then; and she took up a little jasmine flower from the walk. 'Even that you despise to give is dear _to me!_ And so I kissed her on the forehead, and said, 'Good-bye.' Two partings,--never to meet again!" He covered his face with his hands, and his chest heaved heavily.

"It's main dreary in these diggin's here," cried Quackin-boss, as he came up with long strides. "I 've been a-lookin' about on every side to find some one to open the house for us, but there ain't a crittur to be found. What 's all this about? You haven't been a-cryin', have you?"

Alfred turned away his head without speaking.

"I'll tell you what it is, Layton," said he, earnestly, "there's no manner of misfortune can befall in life that one need to fret over, but the death of friends, or sickness; and as these are God's own doin', it is not for us to say they 're wrong. Cheer up, man; you and I are a-goin' to fight the world together."

"You have been a true friend to me," said Layton, grasping the other's hand, while he held his head still averted.

"Well, I mean to, that's a fact; but you must rouse yourself, lad. We're a-goin' 'cross seas, and amongst fellows that, whatever they do with their spare time, give none of it to grief. Who ever saw John C. Colhoun cry? Did any one ever catch Dan Webster in tears?"

"I was n't crying," said Layton; "I was only saddened to see again a spot where I used to be so happy. I was thinking of bygones."

"I take it bygones is very little use if they don't teach us something more than to grieve over 'em; and, what's more, Layton,--it sounds harsh to say it,--but grief, when it's long persisted in, is downright selfishness, and nothing else."

Layton slipped his arm within the other's to move away, but as he did so he turned one last look towards the little garden.

"I see it all now," said Quackinboss, as they walked along; "you've been and met a sweetheart down here once on a time, that's it. She's been what they call cruel, or she's broke her word to you. Well, I don't suppose there's one man livin'--of what might be called real men--as has n't had something of the same experience. Some has it early, some late, but it's like the measles, it pushes you main hard if you don't take it when you 're young. There's no bending an old bough,--you must break it."

There was a deep tone of melancholy in the way the last words were uttered that made Layton feel his companion was speaking from the heart.

"But it's all our own fault," broke in Quackinboss, quickly; "it all comes of the way we treat 'em."

"How do you mean?" asked Layton, eagerly.

"I mean," said the other, resolutely, "we treat 'em as reasonable beings, and they ain't. No, sir, women is like Red-men; they ain't to be persuaded, or argued with; they 're to be told what is right for 'em, and good for 'em, and that's all. What does all your courting and coaxing a gal, but make her think herself something better than all creation? Why, you keep a-tellin' her so all day, and she begins to believe it at last. Now, how much better and fairer to say to her, 'Here's how it is, miss, you 've got to marry me, that's how it's fixed.' She 'll understand that."

"But if she says, 'No, I won't'?"

"No, no," said Quackinboss, with a half-bitter smile, "she 'll never say that to the man as knows how to tell her his mind. And as for that courtship, it's all a mistake. Why, women won't confess they like a man, just to keep the game a-movin'. I'm blest if they don't like it better than marriage."

Layton gave a faint smile, but, faint as it was, Quackinboss perceived it, and said,--

"Now, don't you go a-persuadin' yourself these are all Yankee notions and such-like. I'm a-talkin' of human natur', and there ain't many as knows more of that article than Leonidas Shaver Quackinboss. All you Old-World folk make one great mistake, and nothing shows so clearly as how you 're a worn-out race, used up and done for, You live too much with your emotions and your feelin's. Have you never remarked that when the tap-root of a tree strikes down too far, it gets into a cold soil?

And from that day for'ard you 'll never see fruit or blossom more.

That's just the very thing you 're a-doin'.You ain't satisfied to be active and thrivin' and healthful, but you must go a-specu-latin' about why you are this, and why you ain't t' other. Get work to do, sir, and do it."

"It is what I intend," said Layton, in a low voice.

"There ain't nothing like labor," said Quackinboss, with energy; "work keeps the devil out of a man's mind, for somehow there's nothing that black fellow loves like loafing. And whenever I see a great, tall, well-whiskered chap leaning over a balcony in a grand silk dressing-gown, with a gold stitched cap on his head, and he a-yawning, I say to myself, 'Maybe I don't know _who 's_ at your elbow now;' and when I see one of our strapping Western fellows, as he has given the last stroke of his hatchet to a pine-tree, and stands back to let it fall, wiping the honest sweat from his brow, as his eyes turn upward over the tree-tops to something higher than them, I say to my heart, 'All right, there; he knows who it was gave him the strength to lay that sixty-foot stem so low.'"