'Sabina, ain't you ashamed to laugh?'--'poor thing--won't
stay--gallows'--then silence, and in a few minutes one after another of
the visitors passed by under the window on tip-toe, and almost
immediately a soft knock and a pause. I thought * * * and acted.

'Come in,' said I, in one of those gentle and subdued voices that no one
but a passionate man can possess. The door gradually opened, and there
stood Susan, the devoted aunt.

I had placed a volume of engravings before my eyes, and was busily
engaged in drawing some plan, on paper, as she entered. I went on for a
little while in silence, when she said:

'I understood, sir----'

I said 'wait a minute,' and went on ruling one entire side, with double
lines, in perfect forgetfulness of her presence.

When she spoke again, 'Did you send for me, sir?' I would have answered
at once, for I felt awfully at appearing such a tyro; but the case was a
desperate one of long standing, and required heroic treatment. I kept
her waiting, at first as a lesson, that her imagination might take wings
and fly to the uttermost realms of unhappiness. The second time, I
thought I detected a little impatience in her voice, so I said, taking a
pen and dipping it in red ink, 'wait one moment, Susan,' and went on
lining and interlining. This was not reading, studying, nor writing; it
was what she very well knew I could do any time. So it told on her. Each
moment her valor oozed out, and as soon as I felt that the cup of
bitterness was pretty well drained, I proceeded to offer up this victim
as a sacrifice to peace.