rendering her a model of feminine grace. Graham was intimately
acquainted with Colonel Morley; and with Mrs. Morley had contracted one
of those cordial friendships, which, perfectly free alike from polite
flirtation and Platonic attachment, do sometimes spring up between
persons of opposite sexes without the slightest danger of changing their
honest character into morbid sentimentality or unlawful passion. The
Morleys stopped to accost Graham, but the lady had scarcely said three
words to him, before, catching sight of the haunting face, she darted
towards it. Her husband, less emotional, bowed at the distance, and
said, "To my taste, sir, the Signorina Cicogna is the loveliest girl in
the present bee,* and full of mind, sir."

[*Bee, a common expression in "the West" for a meeting or gathering
]of people.

"Singing mind," said Graham, sarcastically, and in the ill-natured
impulse of a man striving to check his inclination to admire.

"I have not heard her sing," replied the American, dryly; "and the words
'singing mind' are doubtless accurately English, since you employ them;
but at Boston the collocation would be deemed barbarous. You fly off the
handle. The epithet, sir, is not in concord with the substantive."

"Boston would be in the right, my dear Colonel. I stand rebuked; mind
has little to do with singing."

"I take leave to deny that, sir. You fire into the wrong flock, and
would not hazard the remark if you had conversed as I have with Signorina
Cicogna"