HOW MISS FANNY MADE MERRY WITH THE PASSION OF MR.

VERTY.
Verty approached the two young girls and took off his hat.
"Good morning, Redbud," he said, gently.
Redbud blushed slightly, but, carried back to the old days by Verty's forest costume, quickly extended her hand, and forgetting Miss Lavinia's advice, replied, with a delightful mixture of kindness and tenderness: "I'm very glad to see you, Verty." The young man's face became radiant; he completely lost sight of the charge against the young lady made in Miss Sallianna's letter.

He was too happy to ever think of it; and would have stared Redbud out of countenance for very joy and satisfaction, had not Miss Fanny, naturally displeased at the neglect with which she had been treated, called attention to herself.
"Hum!" said that young lady, indignantly, "I suppose, Mr.Verty, I am too small to be seen.

Pray, acknowledge the fact of my existence, sir." "_Anan_ ?" said Verty, smiling.
Fanny stamped her pretty foot, and burst out laughing.
"It's easy to see what is the matter with you!" she laughed.
"Why, there's nothing," said Verty.
"Yes, there is." "What ?" "You're in love." Verty laughed and blushed.
"There!" cried Fanny, "I knew it." "I believe I am." "Listen to him, Redbud!" "She knows it," said Verty.
"Hum! I don't see how anybody can help knowing it." "Why ?" "Because it is plain." "Ah!" "Yes, sir; this very moment you showed it." "Yes--I believe I did." "Odious old thing!" "Who ?" "Why, Miss Sallianna, sir--I don't care if you _are_ paying your addresses! I say she's an odious old thing!--to be giving herself airs, and setting her cap at all our beaux!" Verty stared, and then laughed.
"Miss Sallianna!" he cried.
"Yes, sir!" "I'm in love with her!" "You've just acknowledged it." "Acknowledged it!" "There! you're going to deny your own words, like the rest of your fine sex--the men." "No--I did'nt say I was in love with Miss Sallianna." "Did'nt he, Redbud ?" asked Fanny, appealing to her friend.
"No," said Verty, before she could reply; "I said I was in love with Redbud!" And the ingenuous face of the young man was covered with blushes.
Fanny fairly shook with laughter.
"Oh," she screamed, "and you think I am going to believe that--when you spend the first half an hour of your visit with Miss Sallianna--talking, I suppose, about the 'beauties of nature!'" And the young girl clapped her hands.
"I wanted"-- commenced Verty-- "Oh, don't tell me what you wanted!" cried Fanny; "you saw in the garden here two nice young girls, if I do say it--" "You may--!" "I am not to be led off in that way, sir! I say you saw two agreeable young ladies here evidently not indisposed to talk with visitors, as it's a holiday--and in spite of that, you pass your time in the house with that old Sallianna, cooing and wooing and brewing," added Miss Fanny, inventing a new meaning for an old word on the spur of the moment, "and after that you expect us to believe you when you say you are not in love with her--though what you see to like in that old thing it would take a thousand million sybils, to say nothing of oracles and Pythonesses, to explain!" With which exhausting display of erudition, Miss Fanny lay back on her trellised seat, and shook from the point of her slippers to the curls on her forehead with a rush of laughter.
Redbud had recovered from her momentary confusion, and, with a beseeching glance at Fanny, said to Verty: "How much better you look, Verty, in this dress--indeed you look more homelike." "Do I ?" said the happy Verty, bending his head over his shoulder to admire the general effect; "well, I feel better." "I should think so." "The other clothes were like a turkey blind." "A turkey blind ?" "Oh, you smile!--but you know, when you are lying in the blind, the pine limbs rub against you." "Yes." "Then they did'nt suit me." "No," assented Redbud.
"_I_ don't dance the minuet--so I did'nt want high-healed shoes--" Fanny began to laugh again.
"Nor a cocked hat; the fact is, I do not know how to bow." "See! Come, Mr.Fisher-for-Compliments!" cried Fanny.
"Oh, I never do!" "Well, I believe you don't." "Does anybody ?" "Yes; that odious cousin of mine--that's who does--the conceited coxcomb!" "Your cousin!" "Yes, sir." "Who is it ?" "Ralph Ashley." "Oh--and he comes to see you--and--Miss Sallianna; she said--" Verty's head drooped, and a shadow passed over his ingenuous face.
"There, you're thinking of Miss Sallianna again!" "No--no," murmured Verty, gazing at Redbud with a melancholy tenderness, and trying to understand whether there could possibly be any foundation for Miss Sallianna's charge, that that young lady was in love with Mr.Ralph Ashley.
"Could it be?
Oh, no, no!" "Could what be ?" asked Fanny.
For once Verty was reserved.
"Nothing," he said.
But still he continued to gaze at Redbud with such sad tenderness, that a deep color came into her cheek, and her eyes were cast down.
She turned away; and then Miss Lavinia's advice came to her mind, and with a sorrowful cloud upon her face, she reproached herself for the kindness of her manner to Verty, in their present interview.
"I think I'll go and gather some flowers, yonder," she said, smiling faintly, and with a sad, kind look to Verty, in spite of all.

"Fanny and yourself can talk until I return, you know--" "Let me go with you," said Verty, moving to her side.
Redbud hesitated.
"Come, Redbud!" said Verty, persuasively smiling.
"Oh, no! I think I would like to get the one's I prefer." And she moved away.
Verty gazed after her with melancholy tenderness--his face lit up with the old dreamy Indian smile.