V.

A MULTIVALVE HEART.

PHILIP MALBONE had that perfectly sunny temperament which is
peculiarly captivating among Americans, because it is so rare.
He liked everybody and everybody liked him; he had a thousand
ways of affording pleasure, and he received it in the giving.
He had a personal beauty, which, strange to say, was recognized
by both sexes,--for handsome men must often consent to be
mildly hated by their own. He had travelled much, and had
mingled in very varied society; he had a moderate fortune, no
vices, no ambition, and no capacity of ennui.

He was fastidious and over-critical, it might be, in his
theories, but in practice he was easily suited and never vexed.

He liked travelling, and he liked staying at home; he was so
continually occupied as to give an apparent activity to all his
life, and yet he was never too busy to be interrupted,
especially if the intruder were a woman or a child. He liked
to be with people of his own age, whatever their condition; he
also liked old people because they were old, and children
because they were young. In travelling by rail, he would woo
crying babies out of their mothers' arms, and still them; it
was always his back that Irishwomen thumped, to ask if they
must get out at the next station; and he might be seen handing
out decrepit paupers, as if they were of royal blood and bore
concealed sceptres in their old umbrellas. Exquisitely nice in
his personal habits, he had the practical democracy of a