"I don't want to say it aloud," said Mabel. "I want to whisper it."
"And I, too," echoed I.
And so we both put our mouths, one on each side, to the professor's
ears, and whispered.
"But," exclaimed the old man, as soon as he could recover his breath,
"you must bear in mind that life is not a play,--that--that life is
not what it seems--"
"No, but Mabel _is_," said I.
"Is,--is what?"
"What she seems," cried I.
And then we both laughed; and the professor kissed Mabel, shook my
hand, and at last all laughed.
HOW MR. STORM MET HIS DESTINY.
I.
Huet' dich vor Maegdelein,
Soehnelein, Soehnelein.--HEINE.
I do not know why people always spoke of my friend Edmund Storm as a
confirmed bachelor, considering the fact that he was not far on the
shady side of thirty. It is true, he looked considerably older, and
had to all appearances entered that bloomless and sapless period which
with women is called "uncertain age." Nevertheless, I had a private
conviction that Storm might some fine day shed this dry and shrunken
chrysalis, and emerge in some brilliant and unexpected form. I cannot
imagine what ground I had for such a belief; I only know that I always
felt called upon to combat the common illusion that he was by nature
and temperament set apart for eternal celibacy, or even that he had
ceased to be agitated by matrimonial aspirations.
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