"Mr. Stoutenburgh," said the doctor, "haven't you owned yourself commanded, ever since your heart gave up its lock and key?"
"Yes indeed," said the Squire earnestly,—"I am so bound up in slavery that I have even forgotten the wish to be free! All my wife's things are proper!"
"O hush!" his wife said laughing, but with a little quick bright witness in her eyes, that was pretty to see. Dr. Harrison smiled.
"You see, Miss Derrick!" he said with a little bow to her,—"there is witness on all sides;—and now I will go on with my not impossible she."—
He got through several verses, not without several interruptions, till he came to the exquisite words following;—
"'I wish her beauty,
That owes not all his duty
To gaudy tire or glistring shoetye.
'Something more than
Taffeta or tissue can,
Or rampant feather, or rich fan.
'More than the spoil
Of shop, or silk-worm's toil,
Or a bought blush, or a set smile.'"
While Miss Essie exclaimed, Miss Harrison stole a look at Faith; who was looking up at the doctor, listening, with a very simple face of amusement. Her thoughts were indeed better ballasted than to sway to such a breeze if she had felt it. But the real extreme beauty of the image and of the delineation was what she felt; she made no application of them. The doctor came to this verse.
"'A well-tamed heart,
For whose more noble smart
Love may be long choosing a dart.'—