To think that a paltry superscription should carry such a weight of tribulation with it!
I thus discovered that my lines had fallen in unpleasant places. I was fishing in a preoccupied stream, and had got myself entangled.
I avoided the public table, and shrunk from society. During the whole of the next morning, I kept aloof from the temptations of Tarlingford, and took to billiards.
In the afternoon, as I sat gloomily in my room, with feet protruding from the window, and body inclined rearward, (the American attitude of despair,) the piano tinkled. It was the same melody which had attracted me a few happy days before. Strengthening myself with a powerful resolution to extricate myself from the bewitching influence which had surrounded me, I arose, and went straightway to the parlor. Could it be that a flash of pleasure beamed on Miss Tarlingford's face? or was I a deluded gosling? The latter suggestion seemed the more credible, so I cheerfully adopted it.
"We have missed you, Mr. Plovins," said the fair enslaver; "I hope you have not been unwell?"
"Unwell?—oh, no, no!"
"You have not been near me—us, today," (reprovingly,) "not even at dinner; and the trout were superb."
A sudden hope mounted within me.
"Miss Tarlingford, pray, excuse me,—your first name, may I ask what it is?"
"Arabella is my name, and" (whisperingly) "you may use it, if you like."