"This, Miss Falconer, is my good and valued friend and confidant," (she strove to pronounce the word archly,) "Mr. Hunter."
"It is very well," said Harriet, turning coldly away, and fixing her eye upon the picture. "I am admiring his work, and striving to understand it."
"I do not pretend to be very perspicuous," said the painter, disregarding the mortifying reception and the perhaps equally ungrateful sarcasm. "Mystery is said to be an ingredient in the sublime; and as that is my aim, of course, (it belongs to the aspirations of all youthful candidates for immortality,) I always contrive to be as full of mystery as possible."
To this speech, which was uttered with an air of pleasantry, Miss Falconer only replied by a second penetrating stare; and then fixed her eye again upon the sketch. The painter, determined not to find offence where it was palpably meant, resumed his discourse, saying,
"I am afraid that my foolish music, last night, may have disturbed Miss Falconer. I forgot she had a right to be fatigued after her journey, until the plash of a rain-drop in my eye, as I lifted it romantically to heaven, brought me to my senses, and, ludicrously enough, in the very middle of one of Mr. Jingleum's best pieces."
"You knew, then, that I——Oh, certainly! the carriage rattled by Elsie's door. I am sensible of the compliment, sir, and return you my thanks."
These expressions Miss Falconer uttered with much vivacity, and began the question which she ceased so abruptly, in a voice of eagerness. Indeed, she felt that she had been almost thrown off her guard; and she therefore, without any purpose, except to divert the attention of those present to another subject, and certainly with no definite object in view, said, laying her finger at the same time on the sketch,
"I do not well understand this tree, sir. What kind do you call it?"
"Oh," said Hunter, with a smile, "that is a palm."
"A palm!" cried Miss Falconer, eyeing him with surprise; "and pray, sir, how came a palm on the hills of the Brandywine?"