Aunt Winnifred listened with the utmost interest and patience. Her nephew was eloquent. Well, well, thought the old lady, if interest in his pursuit makes a great painter, my dear nephew will be a great man. During the course of the story Arthur paused several times, evidently lost in reverie--perhaps tracing the analogy. When he ended there was a moment's silence. Then Aunt Winnifred looked kindly at him, and said:

"Well?"

"Well," said Arthur, as he uncurled his leg, and with a half sigh, as if it were pleasanter to tell old legends of love than to paint modern portraits.

"Is that the whole?"

"That is the whole."

"Well; but Arthur, did she marry him after all?"

Arthur looked wistfully a moment at his aunt.

"Marry him! Bless you, no, Aunt Winnifred. She was a goddess. Goddesses don't marry."

Aunt Winnifred did not answer. Her eyes softened like eyes that see days and things far away--like eyes in which shines the love of a heart that, under those conditions, would rather not be a goddess.

CHAPTER LVI.

REDIVIVUS.

Ellen Bennet, like May Newt, was a child no longer--hardly yet a woman, or only a very young one. Rosy cheeks, and clustering hair, and blue eyes, showed only that it was May--June almost, perhaps--instead of gusty March or gleaming April.

"Ellen," said Gabriel, in a low voice--while his mother, who was busily sewing, conversed in a murmuring undertone with her husband, who sat upon the sofa, slowly swinging his slippered foot--"Ellen, Lawrence Newt didn't say that he should ask Edward to his dinner on my birthday."

Ellen's cheeks answered--not her lips, nor her eyes, which were bent upon a purse she was netting.

"But I think he will," added Gabriel. "I think I have mistaken Lawrence Newt if he does not."

"He is usually very thoughtful," whispered Ellen, as she netted busily.

"Ellen, how handsome Edward is!" said Gabriel, with enthusiasm.

The young woman said nothing.

"And how good!" added Gabriel.

"He is," she answered, scarcely audibly. Then she said she had left something up stairs. How many things are discovered by young women, under certain circumstances, to have been left up stairs! Ellen rose and left the room.

"I was saying to your father, Gabriel," said his mother, raising her voice, and still sewing, "that Edward comes here a great deal."

"Yes, mother; and I am glad of it. He has very few friends in the city."

"He looks like a Spaniard," said Mr. Bennet, slowly, dwelling upon every word. "How rich that lustrous tropical complexion is! Its duskiness is mysterious. The young man's eyes are like summer moonlight."

Mr. Bennet's own eyes half closed as he spoke, as if he were dreaming of gorgeous summer nights and the murmur of distant music.

Gabriel and his mother were instinctively silent. The click of her needle was the only sound.

"Oh yes, yes--that is--I mean, my dear, he does come here very often. I do go off on such foolish fancies!" remarked Mr. Bennet, at length.

"He comes very often when you are not at home, Gabriel," said Mrs.

Bennet, after a kind glance at her husband, and still sewing.

"Yes, mother."

"Then it isn't only to see you?"

"No, mother."

"And often when your father and I return from an evening stroll in the streets we find him here."

"Yes, mother."

"It isn't to see us altogether, then?"

"No, mother."

Mrs. Bennet turned her work, and in so doing glanced for a moment at her son. His eyes were upon her face, but he seemed to have said all he had to say.

"I always feel," said Mr. Bennet, in a tone and with an expression as if he were looking at something very far away, "as if King Arthur must have lived in the tropics. There is that sort of weird, warm atmosphere in the romance. Where is Ellen? Shall we read some more in this little edition of the old story?"

He laid his hand, as he spoke, upon a small copy of old Malory's Romance of Arthur. It was a kind of reading of which he was especially fond, and to which the rest were always willing and glad to listen.

"Call Ellen," said he to Gabriel; "and now then for King Arthur!"

As he spoke the door-bell rang. The next moment a young man, apparently of Gabriel's age, entered the room. His large melancholy black eyes, the massive black curls upon his head, the transparent olive complexion, a natural elegance of form and of movement--all corresponded with what Mr.

Bennet had been saying. It was evidently Edward.

"Good-evening, Little Malacca!" cried Gabriel, gayly, as he rose and put out his hand.

"Good-evening, Gabriel!" he answered, in a soft, ringing voice; then bowed and spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Bennet.

"Gabriel doesn't forget old school-days," said the new-comer to Mrs.

Bennet.

"No, he has often told us of his friendship with Little Malacca,"

returned the lady calmly, as she resumed her work.

"And how little I thought I was to see him when I came to Mr. Newt's store," said the young man.

"Where did you first know Mr. Lawrence Newt?" asked Mrs. Bennet.

"I don't remember when I didn't know him, Madam," replied Edward.