"I know not whether 't is dreaming or enchantment," said I; "but sleep or
sorcery, 't is very pleasant and I trust will never end."

"What is it that you think enchantment, Tom?" she asked.

"What could it be but you?" I retorted, and she smiled the slyest little
smile in the world. "I swear that when I entered that door ten minutes
since, I was wide awake as any man, but the moment I clapt eyes on you, I
lost all sense of my surroundings, and have since trod on air."

"Oh, what do you think it can be?" she questioned, pretending to look
mightily concerned, "Do you think it is the fever, Tom?"

But I was far past teasing.

"To think that you should be Dorothy!" I said. "I may call you Dorothy,
may I not?"

"Why, of course you may!" she cried. "Are we not cousins, Tom?"

What a thrill it gave me to hear her call me Tom! Of course we were not
cousins, but I fancy all the tortures of the Inquisition could not at
that moment have made me deny the relationship. Well, we talked and
talked. Of what I said, I have not the slightest remembrance,--it was all
foolish enough, no doubt,--but Dorothy told me how her mother had been
managing the estate, greatly assisted by the advice of a Major
Washington, living ten miles up the river at Mount Vernon; how her
brother James had been tutored by my old preceptor, but showed far
greater liking for his horse and cocks than for his books; and how Mr.
Washington had come to Riverview a month before to propose that Mistress