remarked Marcus Wilkeson.

"Perhaps," was that gentleman's answer, implying, by his accent and accompanying wink, that he had seen her repeatedly.

"And said nothing about her to us, you inveterate humbug," added Marcus.

Mr. Maltboy felt the compliment conveyed in the word "humbug"--as most people do when that accusation of shrewdness and deep dissembling is brought against them--and smiled.

"I confess," he replied, as he polished the window simultaneously with the performance of that process across the way, "I confess I have noticed her several times; but what was the use of mentioning it to a pair of woman haters like you?"

His two companions laughed pleasantly, thereby expressing their gratification at the return compliment involved in the phrase "woman haters."

"You are such dull fellows now," continued Maltboy, "that perhaps you will say this fair stranger is not looking at us; that she does not desire to be seen by us--that is, by me; and that her rubbing of the window with a handkerchief is not a signal which she expects to be answered."

"We say nothing," replied the disputatious Overtop. "We only wait for proof. It is easy to find out whether a signal is meant or not. Rub the window now."

Maltboy did so, concluding the act with an unmistakable flourish of the handkerchief. Whereupon the tall girl averted her face, pulled down the curtain, and eclipsed herself.

Wilkeson and Overtop laughed, and, with a common impulse, punched Maltboy triumphantly in the ribs--a friendly salute that was always vastly amusing to that gentleman.

"Be it understood, at this stage of affairs," said Marcus, solemnly, "that I reject the Overtop theory, and wash my hands of all responsibility for Maltboy's misdeeds.--Hallo! There he is again."

"Who? Where?" exclaimed his two friends.

"In the house nearly opposite--the one with the grape arbor. Isn't he a fine old fellow?"

Overtop and Maltboy looked, and there saw, sitting at a window, and placidly gazing out of it, an old gentleman with long and thick white hair, a ruddy face, a white neckcloth, and a large projecting shirt frill--which were all the peculiarities of person and dress that could be distinctly made out. He was smoking a long pipe, and placidly rocking himself to and fro. His appearance, through the two windows, was that of a finely preserved relic of a past generation,

"He always has a long pipe in his mouth, and looks benignantly into the open air," said Wilkeson,

"So even you are not wholly devoid of curiosity, and do take some interest in the people on our block," remarked Matthew Maltboy,

"I have noticed the old gentleman often, when I have been reading near the window; and own that I should like to know him. I think, too, from certain signs, that he would not object to knowing me. Unless I am much mistaken, he has bowed to me several times. But fearing that the supposed bow might have been nothing more than a sleepy nod, I have never ventured to answer it. Step back a moment, and see if he observes me."

Maltboy and Overtop retired a few paces. A moment afterward, the old gentleman looked over to Wilkeson, and made a bow at him about which there could be no mistake.

"Answer him." "Answer him," said his two friends. Acting upon this advice, Marcus Wilkeson, blushing, returned a courtly salute, which was immediately reciprocated by a still lower bow, and a pleasant smile from the old gentleman. Wilkeson bowed again, and added a smile. The old gentleman did the same; and this odd exchange of civilities was beginning to get awkward for Wilkeson, when the old gentleman's attention was suddenly called off.

A slender young man, whose broad black mustache contrasted unpleasantly with the sallow whiteness of his face, dressed in the jauntiest costume of the period, and bearing in one hand a black cane with a large ivory handle, which looked, even in the distance, like a human leg, stood by the old gentleman's side. The old gentleman put down his pipe, seized the young man's disengaged hand, and gazed affectionately at him (so the three observers thought). Some conversation then took place between them, during which the old gentleman repeatedly pressed the young man's hand, and sometimes reached up and softly patted him on the shoulder. The young man appeared to receive the words and caresses of the old gentleman with a sullen indifference. Several times he pettishly drew his hand away, and at last shook his head fiercely, folded his arms, and seemed (though the spectators could only conjecture that) to stamp the floor with his foot. At this, the old gentleman bowed his head in his hands. The young man held his defiant attitude unmoved, until, glancing out of the window, he saw for the first time that he was watched. "With a jerk, he pulled down the curtain, and cut off a scene which the three observers had begun to find profoundly interesting.

"Well," said Marcus Wilkeson, "though I have given up making calls as a business, I shall certainly take the New-Year's privilege of dropping in on the venerable unknown over the way."

"Two things are plain," said Fayette Overtop. "One is, that the pale, rascally looking young man is the old man's son. Now, I don't suppose either of you will dispute that?" (Overtop paused a moment to receive and dispose of objections, but none were made.) "The other is, that the old fellow is immensely rich--worth a million or two, maybe. Perhaps you would like to argue that point." Overtop smiled, as if nothing would give him greater pleasure than to annihilate a few dozen opinions to the contrary.

"To save argument, as usual, we admit everything," responded Wilkeson. "But, pray condescend to tell us how you know this fine old boy to be superlatively rich."

Overtop smiled upon his ignorant friends, and answered:

"Because he wears a white cravat. The man isn't a clergyman, is he? Do clergymen smoke pipes? He isn't a Quaker, is he? Do Quakers, or those of them who indulge in white cravats, wear their coat collars turned down? Consult your own experience, now, and tell me whether you ever saw anybody but a very rich man (with the exceptions already stated) wearing a white cravat. I leave it to your candor."

Wilkeson and Maltboy nodded their heads, as if stricken dumb with conviction.

Overtop, gratified with this ready acquiescence, modestly went on to say that he would not undertake to explain the phenomenon; that task he left to some more philosophical mind. He contented himself with making a humble record of facts.

"And now that each of you have made a discovery in the row of houses, let me try my luck." Overtop rubbed the window, looked out, and carefully surveyed the row from end to end, and back again. "Ah, I have it!" he said. "A real mystery, too. Look at that four-story house near the western end of the block, the one a trifle shabbier than its neighbors. Do you see, in the open window, a man with a pale, intellectual face, gray hair, and arms bare to the elbows, filing away at something held in a vise before him? Now he stops to examine a paper--a plan, probably--which he holds in his hand. Now he wipes the perspiration from his forehead. Can't you see him?"

"Distinctly," was the joint reply.

"What do you suppose he is doing?" asked Overtop.

"No idea," said Wilkeson. "Perhaps mending a teakettle."

"Or repairing an umbrella," suggested Maltboy.

Overtop smiled, and said:

"A person with the slightest powers of observation, would see that that man has genius in his face; that his thin arm is not used to hard mechanical labor; that his brain is so heated with great ideas, that he tries to cool it by opening the window. The tinkering of an umbrella or teakettle would not make a man sweat in midwinter. You won't deny the force of that suggestion."

As he spoke, a young girl advanced from the back part of the room, and stood by the pale workman's side. She wore a bonnet, and a shawl tightly wrapped around her. Though the features