Page:Sylvester Sound the Somnambulist (1844).djvu/232

bodicub—bore thad he could, with ady great degree of cobfort, digest. But isd't it stradge, dow, that we cad't get to the bottob of this? Isd't it barvellous, Syl?"

"It is indeed. I know not what to think of it."

"Well," said Tom, "I suppose they are pretty well satisfied dow? I presube they dod't idtedd to do ady bore bischief this bout! we'll, therefore, go to bed. But I'll try adother dodge or two. Of course, I'b safe to be bade a bartyr: I've suffered three bartyrdobs already, but I'll dot give it up. If they are to be caught, I'll catch 'eb; add if I do catch 'eb, I'll strodgly recobbedd theb to look out! I'll reward theb haddsobely—they shall be paid! I feel dow as if I could half burder a couple with all the pleasure that appertaids to life. However, let's pludge idto bed agaid. I feel so biserable, Syl, that I've a good bide to say I'll go to sleep for a bodth!"

They then returned to their respective rooms, and were disturbed no more.

In the morning, almost immediately after breakfast, the reverend gentleman called; and Aunt Eleanor, with all that tact by which ladies are commonly characterised, arranged matters so that they were alone. The reverend gentleman was in excellent spirits—he had not, indeed, been for some years so gay; but Aunt Eleanor felt tremulous, and anxious, and odd: her pulse did not beat with anything like regularity, nor did she speak with any certainty of tone: she knew not, in fact, what to make of her feelings: they appeared to her to be so extraordinary—so droll—there was, in a word, a certain novelty about them which she could not at all understand.

"Now, my dear madam," said the reverend gentleman, when all the preliminaries to conversation had been arranged, "I'll show you my credentials." And taking Sylvester's letter from his pocket, he presented it with an air of confidence perfectly consistent with the feelings he entertained.

"Dear me," said Aunt Eleanor, on glancing at the letter, "this is indeed his handwriting! And yet how extraordinary it is, that he should have sent such a letter. I cannot account for it at all!"

"The young rogue! like a young colt or a young kitten—full of play, my dear madam, full of play!"

"But it is so contrary to his general character and conduct."

"Youth, youth!" said the reverend gentleman. "Youth always was, and always will be youth!"

This remarkable observation settled the point as far as it went, and Aunt Eleanor proceeded to read the letter; but while she was reading, the reverend gentleman—who watched her with an expression of anxiety mingled with delight—could not perceive the slightest change in her countenance; at which he marvelled—and naturally; seeing that he was at the time perfectly unconscious of the fact that, although she was reading with great apparent care, she was in reality thinking of something else. Had the reverend gentleman the previous day omitted the observation having reference to the resuscitation of certain feelings, which had long been lying dormant, she would, while reading this letter,