"How perfectly the last assertion disproves the first!" I replied; "but
I retract, I will not, even for the sake of a syllogism, abuse my own
sex; women are never envious except when men make them so, by casting
down among them the golden apple of admiration."

"I know one man, at least, who never foments discord in this way!
Wentworth, from the beginning, had eyes and ears for no one but
yourself, yet I never dreamed the drama would be enacted so speedily; I
own I was as much in the dark as anybody."

I could not reply to this _badinage_, as in happier moments I might have
done, but said, digressively:

"By-the-by, while I think of it, I must put down on my tablet the order
of Mr. Vernon. He wants 'Longfellow's Poems,' if for sale in Savannah.
He has been permeating his brain with the 'Psalms of Life,' that have
come out singly in the _Knickerbocker Magazine_, until he craves every
thing that pure and noble mind has thrown forth in the shape of a song."

And I scribbled in my memorandum-book, for a moment, while Major Favraud
mused.

"Longfellow!" he said, at last, "Phoebus, what a name!" adding
affectedly, "yet it seems to me, on reflection, I _have_ heard it
before. He is a Yankee, of course! Now, do you earnestly believe a
native of New England, by descent a legitimate witch-burner, you know,
_can_ be any thing better than a poll-parrot in the poetical line?"

"Have we not proof to the contrary, Major Favraud?"