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You shall know before I have done with you; Edwards
may do, for Edward is part of my true name.—But softly,
softly, you have not said how you like your room—it is rather
dark to be sure, but I hope you may like it, for Mary has
been at work all day fitting it up for you.

Mary—what Mary?

My wife—it is your room now.

My room now—your wife?

Ay to be sure, though you seem to think I have made a
mistake—perhaps in the phraseology. What's the matter
with you—don't you like it; rather small I confess, but very
snug, put in order for you by Mary herself—poor Mary!

Poor Mary—I beg your pardon. How do I like it—this
dear little snug bed-room—it is a bed-room, hey?

Yes.

Her bed-room?

Our bed-room, if you please.

Oh, your bed-room—How do I like it? with that fine old
tree there overshadowing the thatched-roof, and the grapevines
clinging to the little diamond-cut window like a transparent
green curtain; how do I like it! Pray did you ever
read one of Miss Owenson's books, the Wild Irish-Girl, or the
Wild Irish-Boy, or some such name—

Yes.

And don't you remember a passage where somebody says
to somebody else (I've a wretched memory for names) that
somebody said to her, How do you like dancing?—whereupon,
says the Wild Irish-Girl, I could not help thinking of
somebody who once asked me how I liked poetry—how I
liked poetry! oh my God. Now poetry is only a sort
of a—of a—of a, I forget how she explains poetry now,
but dancing she calls the poetry of motion, adding thereto,
Oh what a beautiful idea!

Well—

Well!

You have not answered my question yet, my good Sir.

What question?

I asked you five minutes ago how you liked your room.

And I have answered you with a speech of Lady Morgan,
while she was overflowing with enthusiasm about the word
like, and what more would you have?

What more! a direct answer—if it were possible to get one
out of a real Yankee.

Don't be so absurd as to imagine, I beg of you, that the
real Yankee cannot answer a question as well as—

Will not, you mean—that is the charge.

—A question as well as another, Mr. Edwards—

Ha ha ha! Mr. C. H. But will you be pleased to answer
mine?

By the by though, that reminds me of asking you how
you came to know my fictitious name of C. H.

Just as I know your real name—as I know that of most
people who are in the trade of authorship.

Of authorship! oh ho! thought I—of authorship, hey?
Cat's out o' the bag now! neither a drawing-master, nor a
player. Nothing after all but a retired author, I dare say.
God preserve me! a pretty kettle o' fish I've got into. Before
the week is over, I shall see a heap of illegible manuscript
laid in my way to revise, a tragedy or two, a poem or
two, or a novel in three huge volumes, with a desire that I
will speak of their faults in detail.

But how, said I, as soon as I could speak, how do you
obtain this knowledge about authors and authorship?—I had
him there I thought.

Another time if you please—after tea.

Why not now?

We are expected below now. Mary is preparing the
turf-seat by the door, and you shall have your tea in the open
air to-night—if you 'll be good. A week more and that
pleasure will be done with for the season. Are you ready?
I'm only waiting for you.

For me—you waiting for me?

I am indeed.

Explain yourself.

After we are below—I want my wife to share the joke;
we are going to have such a laugh—

Indeed—about what?

About you.

Indeed.

By the by though, as you say, do you remember a joke
told by somebody of somebody else, in a book the title of
which I forget now (I have a bad memory for names)—the
latter somebody a countryman of yours, who had been domesticated
here, a real native Yankee.

How do I know? What is the story?

Why, the joke is that Mr. A, the Englishman, who knew
a good deal of the Yankees, and B, the Yankee, who
ought to have known a good deal more of them, had a dispute
together touching the habit which I observe in you, of
not answering a question—except by another question.

In me!

Yes, in you—strange as it may appear. Well, Mr. A and
Mr. B made a bet. And while they were talking, a native
Yankee hove in sight. Now is the time to decide the bet,
said A, if you are agreed. With all my heart, said B, and
you shall put the question. Agreed. I say, Doctor C,
(addressing the other native) what is the reason that the
Yankees always answer a question by asking another question?
Why—do they? said Doctor C.

And you put faith in such a story said I, you that have
been among the native Yankees?

Very fair, just what I said Mr. C. H. You deny the
truth of it, I see.

I do—it is very improbable, even for a joke; and what is
more, though the question was a very adroit one, and calculated
to produce any thing but a yes or a no, I maintain that
the people of my country are no worse than the shrewder
people of your country, in this matter.—

Ah, you have said all that before.—

I—when—where—

About a year ago, in Blackwood—

Zounds! who are you?—It is from Blackwood then that
you learned my fictitious name!

No indeed—whatever I may think of Blackwood on other
accounts, I would not scruple to trust him with my true name
as a contributor, if my life depended on it—I will say that
for him—He is faithful in such matters.

Oh, he 's an author—one of the Blackwood school, I'm
sure of that now, said I to myself. But he proceeded—

So you deny the charge, do you?

Yes, I do.

Beautiful! Do you know that we have been together
now for about half an hour; and that during all that time
you, you yourself, Mr. C. H. have not answered a single
question of mine, otherwise than by a question of yours?

Pho pho—as you say.

I do not wish to mortify you, but such is the fact.

Mortify!

Yet more; you know the question I put you some minutes
ago, about this room; you know I have repeated it over
and over again—

You are going too far now.—

And yet as I live, up to this moment I have had no other
answer to that simple query.

Pshaw!

What say you, Mr. C. H., guilty or not guilty?

Pho pho.—

Mary!

The door opened and his wife appeared, with her foot
just over the threshold.—

Why Mary—how you blush! What is the matter with
you?

I could not see her blush; I could see nothing but the
little foot.

Come in you simpleton; why what ails you—why do you
hesitate?

I looked up and saw her standing just outside of the door,
with her head a little advanced.

What are you afraid of—come in, will you?

It is not our room now Edward.—

No more it is, faith! I beg your pardon, Mr. C. H.;
and I beg yours, child. But you—hey—what—you've been
crying?

No, Edward.

No! why the tears are in your eyes now.

From laughing then I assure you, not from crying.

So so! laughing at what, dear?

Excuse me.

Pho pho, out with it: you overheard us, did you not?

Yes.

The whole of our dialogue?

Yes—but I pray you to explain how and why; do, my
dear Edward—for I cannot bear to be regarded by Mr. H—
as a conspirator.

Fiddle de dee! Mr. H— will enjoy the joke as much as
you do, when you have told him how the matter is. He
then proceeded to say that he had entrapped me merely to
satisfy his wife that a genuine Yankee could not answer a
question—or would not. Having been a good while among
the Yankees, continued he, I thought proper to tell her the
other day that the story you have just heard was no caricature.
She regarded it as only a story—a mere joke; but
I have convinced her now, I hope, that contrive a question
as you may, and bait it as you may, you will never catch a
bite from a real native.

But surely Madam said I, surely you are not satisfied;
you are not going to put faith in such absurdity; you do not
mean to give up the point, I hope?

She shook her head.

You do!

I am afraid I must; for to tell you the truth, I—a—a—

Out with it, there 's a dear—'t will do him good.

Yes Madam, said I, out with it, I beg of you.

If you will promise to enjoy the joke—

I will, Madam,—I will!—I do.—

She looked rather serious; but before we had finished our
tea, I was able to keep my word, able to enjoy the joke, for
she repeated substantially the very conversation that I have
now detailed, and I was so struck with it, and with what she
said of my dexterity in avoiding every question, that I took
minutes of the dialogue from her own mouth.

But how shall I describe the evening that followed, the
days, the week—for it was a whole week before I got away,
and such a week too! the happiest I had ever spent in my life.
And yet, strange as it may appear, when I left them, I knew
as little of what I desired to know, as I did the first hour we
met on the hill-top. Their very name was a mystery to me—
their mode of life—they saw no company, they appeared to
live only for each other. Day after day went by, and though
we were apparently at our ease, cordial and free as if we had
been brought up together from our very childhood, yet was
there a —a something about both which troubled me, a sort
of acknowledged mystery that gave me pain. I felt as if
we were not associating on equal terms. They knew me—
they were even acquainted with my family, he by having met
them in America, and she at second-hand, by hearing what
he said of them. Of course therefore, as I did not know
them—as they told me over and over again with what was
intended for a smile, though it was any thing but a smile, that I
never should know them as they knew me, I felt in their
company very much as a man would feel, if he were thrown

with his face uncovered, among a party of masked people;
who whatever he might say, would not be persuaded to unmask,
and who while they journeyed with him side by side
over the familiar paths and among the every-day scenery of
life, with not only their faces but their hearts in shadow,
were always contriving to lead him toward the light, where
they could try experiments upon him in every possible way,
and watch the changes of his countenance the while, without
fear and without risk.

You are not well, said the woman to me—I wish I might call
her Mary—I cannot bear the name of Edwards now.—Mrs.
Edwards! no faith, I would as lief call a creature that I loved
a lady, as we do every thing that wears a cap or is intended
to wear a cap in America. How 's your lady to-day?
I have heard one retail shopkeeper say to another in
the republican parts of my country, and a bit of a haberdasher's
boy talk by the hour together of the ladies whom he saw at
such or such a singing-school or dancing-school, and both it
may be, while they were laughing at the free negroes, for
making a similar inquiry of each other. You are not well—
I am sure, said she, laying her dear little hand upon my arm
as she spoke (N. B. her husband was there) and throwing
aside a little cap that she had been at work upon by stealth,
every day and almost every hour since I had been at
the cottage.

Where 's your guitar child—what say you to a little music,
Mr. H?

You are very kind Sir, but—and here I made a full stop.

Sir, again!

Well well—

I am very kind, but what—

I know she plays well—and I never enjoyed any music
half so much in my life, as I do that strange little serenade

of hers; but some how or other, I do not feel to-night, as
if—as if—as if I—in short, I beg your pardon—I don't know
what I was going to say—

That 's your fault Mary—

My fault! how so—

Do you see where your hand is? It was on my arm.

Ah—

Pho pho, why do you snatch it away?

Really, I do not know—

And you did not know I dare say, that your hand was
there?

No indeed, I forgot myself some how—Mr. H. has been
with us so long now—

So long! said I.

Very civil to be sure—added her husband.

You know what I mean, Edward—you distress me; you
know that with some people we get acquainted in a few
hours—and you know that since we have had Mr. H. with
us, we have been as much together as we should have been
perhaps in a whole year of common acquaintance—of such
acquaintance Edward, as we look for at Ba—

Mary!

So that—in a word, continued the wife with a look of embarrassment,
I feel toward Mr. H— as if I had known him a
great while, and just now, on seeing him look so serious, to
tell you the truth Edward, I forgot myself—

Very fair—

I mistook him for you, I mean—

Better still.

No no, I beseech you Edward; no no, it is unkind of
you to teaze me in this way. You do not feel, nor do I—
nor do you wish me to feel as if I had known him only a
week.

Nor have we known him for only a week, child. We had a
pretty thorough knowledge of his character before we saw him.

Before you saw me, said I in astonishment. How—in
what way?

By two or three of your mad novels. Mary, do you remember
asking me if Mr. H. really was a—

Edward—Edward—you are going too far.

Pho pho, I 'll tell you how that was, Mr. H. About a
year after I saw you in the Abbey, I discovered who you
were, and having already met with some of your mad rigmarole
stories—don't bow—in America, two of which I had
brought away, I went home to my wife and told her that I
had seen you; that I had found out who you were, and that
you were the veritable author of —, the only book of the
whole that I was ever able to get through with.

How can you say so, Edward!

It is very true upon my soul, dear; but I say though, Mr.
H. I never shall forget her look when I told her that I had
found out who you were. Well now—is he crazy? said
she.

For shame, Edward—

For shame! why so—can you deny it?

She made no reply; but endeavoured to change the conversation,
so that I could perceive how the matter was.

And so, you really thought me crazy? said I.

She hesitated, and struck the guitar and made up her
mouth for a song.

I know you did; but still I should like to know what led
you to form that opinion.

She smiled. If you are quite serious and will take what
I say, in the humor which appears natural to you—for to-night
you are so altered by your gravity, one hardly knows
how to speak before you—I will confess the truth.

Do, Madam, do—you will gratify me very much.

Perhaps not. She then proceeded to inform me that
when they first saw me in the Abbey they both agreed in believing
me to be crazy—my step—the look of my eyes, the
manner in which I darted by them at the door, with my hat
off and my hair tumbled up in a very odd sort of a way, with
the wind blowing through it; oh, it was quite impossible to
mistake such symptoms, and they even went so far as to ask
the verger why he had let me in; but he excused himself,
it appeared, by saying that I passed him in a great hurry,
when it was rather dark and before he observed my face.
He agreed with them however in supposing me a little touched
or so, and promised to keep a better look out for the future.

And so, said I, the fear that I observed in you, instead of
being the fear of a—of a—a—a—but proceed, I beg of you.

Well, when I heard that you were the author of —
and of — which my husband had brought with him from
your country, and which we saw clearly were the works of a
madman, there was no more to be said—we had no hope
left.

And pray, said I, what is your opinion of me now—now
that you have known me a whole week—do you think
me crazy or not?

She laughed, and was going to lay her hand on my arm
again I do believe, but she stopped and smiled as I repeated
the question—What say you, crazy or not?

A le-ee-eetle, as you say in America—a leetle, I do believe.

Faith, but you have a pretty way of entertaining our guest,
Mary, said her husband. You have touched him, Is ee.
You have made him more serious than ever.

Very true said I, very true—as I ran over the history of
my own thoughts concerning the people before me. Very true,
as you say; what blockheads we are! And so the beautiful
theory I spun—the fair hypothesis I wove, while I stood in
the niche of the Abbey as they swept by me—of what value
is it now? a theory that I prided myself so much upon, for
never theory was half so clear; an hypothesis which—oh, never
was any hypothesis half so satisfactory. Of about as
much value as the cobwebs that were spun there at the same
time.

The niche of the Abbey—what niche?

Why, a little dark niche, where I stood when you two passed
me before I saw you at the door; you were lingering
behind all the rest of the company, and you must have
thought yourselves quite alone, I am sure—

Why so pray?—proceed—Mary!

Neither of you spoke—and your—why, bless me! but I
begin to believe my dear Madam, that you are a conspirator.

A conspirator! she repeated in a fluttering voice, and with
a change of look that surprised me.

Yes—you are so pale now—