merry, vivacious music.


CHAPTER IV.

Meanwhile, Catharine and Mr. Muller walked down the street in absolute
silence, Kitty bearing herself with her usual grave politeness,
though there was a quizzical laugh in her eyes. "Lover? My lover?"
she thought. But she did not blush, as some other innocent girls would
have done. She had never talked an hour in her life to a young man, or
heard from other girls their incessant chirping of "he--he," like that
of birds in spring wooing their mates. Her nearest acquaintance with
lovers was old Peter's rendering of Romeo or Othello. She remembered
them well enough as her eye furtively ran over the jaunty little
figure beside her. "Is his hose ungartered, his beard neglected, his
shoe untied?" she thought. "Pshaw! he is not Orlando, any more than I
am Rosalind." Her mother had been mistaken, that was all: she let the
matter slip easily past her. There was a certain tough common sense in
Catharine that summarily sent mistakes and sentimental fancies to the
right about.

Mr. Muller, finding the words he wished to speak would not come at
once, and ashamed of jogging on in silence, began to overflow with
the ordinary ideas of which he was full. They passed the grape-packing
house. "Eight thousand boxes despatched last season, Catharine! And
there is the Freedmen's Agency. Three teachers supported, five hundred
primers furnished to Virginia alone since January, and I really forget
the number of Bibles. But the world moves: yes indeed. And I think
sometimes Berrytown moves in the van."