"In order to carry out this transaction honestly, am I expected to
make conscious and patient effort to come under the influence of
this maiden in brown, who has had some mysterious complaint in the
past, about which 'neither you, nor I, nor anybody knows,' as the
poet saith: or, like the ancient mariner, will she 'hold me with
her glittering eye?'"

"You have only to jog on in your old ways until she wakes you up
and makes a man of you."

"I surely am dreaming; for never did the level-headed Van Berg talk
such arrant nonsense before. If she seems to you such a marvel,
why don't you open your own mouth and let the ripe cherry drop into
it."

"One reason will answer, were there no others--she wouldn't drop.
If you ever win her, my boy, you will have to bestir yourself."

"I'd rather win the picture. Let me see--I know the very place in
my room where I shall hang it."

"You are a little premature. That chicken is not yet hatched,
and you may feel like hanging yourself in the place of the picture
before the summer is over."

"Let me wrap your head in ice-water, Van. There's mine host--O, Mr.
Burleigh!" he cried to the landlord, who at that moment happened
to cross the piazza; "please step here. My friend Mr. Van Berg has
been strangely fascinated by the stranger in brown whom you, with
some deep and malicious design, placed opposite to him at the