Bartlett.—"Oh, you're not keeping me! There's no hurry. I can work later just as well."
Constance.—"Then,"—with a glance at his devout posture, of which Bartlett has himself become quite unconscious,—"won't you sit down, Mr. Bartlett?"
Bartlett, restored to consciousness and confusion:—"Thanks; I think it will be better." He rises, and in his embarrassment draws a chair to the spot on which he has been kneeling, and sits down very close to her. He keeps the fan in his hand, as he talks: "It's rather nice out there, Miss Wyatt,—there on the island. You must be rowed out as soon as you can stand it. The General would like it."
Constance.—"Is it a large place, the island?"
Bartlett.—"About two acres, devoted exclusively to golden-rod and granite. The fact is, I was going to make a little study of golden-rod and granite, there. You shall visit the Fortunate Isle in my sketch, this afternoon, and see whether you'd like to go, really. People camp out there in the summer. Who knows, but if you keep on—gaining—this way, you may yet feel like camping out there yourself before you go away? You do begin to feel better, don't you? Everybody cries up this air."
Constance.—"It's very pleasant; it seems fine and pure. Is the island a pretty place?"
Bartlett, glancing out at it over his shoulder:—"Well, you get the best of it from the parlour window, here. Not that it's so bad when you're on it; there's a surly, frugal, hard-headed kind of beauty about it,—like the local human nature—and it has its advantages. If you were camping out there, you could almost provision yourself from the fish and wild fowl of the surrounding waters,—supposing any of your party liked to fish or shoot. Does your father like shooting?"
Constance.—"No, I don't believe he cares for it."
Bartlett.—"I'm glad of that. I shall be spared the painful hospitality of pointing out the best places for ducks." At an inquiring look from Constance: "I'm glad for their sakes, not mine; I don't want to kill them."