Warden; "but her heart, it is another's, and it never-- What's her name, Tom?"

"Fanny Summers. If you had been in this place four-and-twenty hours, you would have no need to ask. Half the men in town are spooney about her."

"Fanny. Ah! a very bad omen. Never knew a Fanny yet who wasn't a natural born flirt. What's the style--dark or fair, _belle_ blonde, or _jolie_ brunette?"

"Brunette; dark, bright, sparkling, saucy, piquant irresistible! Oh!"

cried Tom, with a dismal groan, sinking into a chair, "it is too bad, _too_ bad to be treated so!"

"So it is, my poor Tom. She deserved the bastinado, the wicked witch.

The bastinado not being practicable, let us think of something else. She deserves punishment, and she shall have it; paid back in her own coin, and with interest, too. Eh? Well?"

For Tom had started up in his chair, violently excited and red in the face.

"The very thing!" cried Tom. "I have it! She shall be paid in her own coin, and I'll have most glorious revenge, if you'll only help me, Paul."

"To my last breath, Tom; only don't make so much noise. Hand me the match-box, my pipe's gone out. Now, what is it?"

"Paul, they call you irresistible--the women do."

"Do they? Very polite of them. Well?"

"Well, being irresistible, why can't you make love to Fanny Summers, talk her into a desperate attachment to you, and then treat her as she has treated me--jilt her?"

Paul Warden opened his large, dreamy eyes to their widest, and fixed them on his excited young friend.

"Do you mean it, Tom?"

"Never meant anything more in my life, Paul."

"But supposing I could do it; supposing I am the irresistible conqueror you gallantly make me out; supposing I could talk the charming Fanny into that deplorable attachment--it seems a shame, doesn't it?"

"A shame!" exclaimed poor Tom, smarting under a sense of his own recent wrong; "and what do you call her conduct to _me_? It's a poor rule that won't work both ways. Let her have it herself, hot and strong, and see how she likes it--she's earned it richly. You can do it, I know, Paul; you have a way with you among women. I don't understand it myself, but I see it takes. You can do it, and you're no friend of mine, Warden, if you don't."

"Do it! My dear fellow, what wouldn't I do to oblige you; break fifty hearts, if you asked me. Here's my hand--it's a go."

"And you'll flirt with her, and jilt her?"

"With the help of the gods. Let the campaign begin at once, let me see my fair, future victim to-night."

"But you'll be careful, Paul," said Tom, cooling down as his friend warmed up. "She's very pretty, uncommonly pretty; you've no idea how pretty, and she may turn the tables and subjugate you, instead of you subjugating her."

"The old story of the minister who went to Rome to convert the Pope, and returned a red-hot Catholic. Not any thanks. My heart is iron-clad; has stood too many sieges to yield to any little flirting brunette.

Forewarned is forearmed. Come on, old fellow," rising from his sofa, "if 'tis done, when it is done, 'twere well 'twere done quickly.'"

"How goes the night?" said Tom, looking out; "it's raining. Do you mind?"

"Shouldn't mind if it rained pitchforks in so good a cause. Get your overcoat and come. I think those old chaps--what-do-you-call-'em, Crusaders? must have felt as I do now, when they marched to take Jerusalem. Where are we to find _la belle_ Fanny?"

"At her sister's, Mrs. Walters, she's only here on a visit; but during her five weeks' stay she has turned five dozen heads, and refused five dozen hands, my own the last," said Tom, with a groan.

"Never mind, Tom; there is balm in Gilead yet. Revenge is sweet, you know, and you shall taste its sweets before the moon wanes. Now then, Miss Fanny, the conquering hero comes!"

The two young men sallied forth into the rainy, lamp-lit streets. A passing omnibus took them to the home of the coquettish Fanny, and Tom rang the bell with vindictive emphasis.

"Won't she rather wonder to see you, after refusing you?" inquired Mr.

Warden, whilst they waited.

"What do I care!" responded Mr. Maxwell, moodily; "her opinion is of no consequence to me now."

Mrs. Walters, a handsome, agreeable-looking young matron, welcomed Tom with a cordial shake of the hand, and acknowledged Mr. Warden's bow by the brightest of smiles, as they were ushered into the family parlor.

"We are quite alone, this rainy night, my sister and I," she said. "Mr.

Walters is out of town for a day or two. Fanny, my dear, Mr. Warden; my sister, Miss Summers, Mr. Warden."

It was a pretty, cozy room, "curtained, and close, and warm;" and directly under the gas-light, reading a lady's magazine, sat one of the prettiest girls it had ever been Mr. Warden's good fortune to see, and who welcomed him with a brilliant smile.

"Black eyes, jetty ringlets, rosy cheeks, alabaster brow," thought Mr.

Warden, taking stock; "the smile of an angel, and dressed to perfection.

Poor Tom! he's to be pitied. Really, I haven't come across anything so much to my taste this month of Sundays."

Down sat Mr. Paul Warden beside the adorable Fanny, plunging into conversation at once with an ease and fluency that completely took away Tom's breath. That despondent wooer on the sofa, beside Mrs. Walters, pulled dejectedly at the ears of her little black-and-tan terrier, and answered at random all the pleasant things she said to him. He was listening, poor fellow, to that brilliant flow of small talk from the mustached lips of his dashing friend, and wishing the gods had gifted him with a similar "gift of the gab," and feeling miserably jealous already. He had prepared the rack for himself with his eyes wide open; but that made the torture none the less when the machinery got in motion. Pretty Fanny snubbed him incontinently, and was just as bewitching as she knew how to his friend. It was a clear case of diamond cut diamond--two flirts pitted against each other; and an outsider would have been considerably puzzled on which to bet, both being so evenly matched.

Tom listened, and sulked; yes, sulked. What a lot of things they found to talk about, where he used to be tongue-tied. The magazine, the fashion-plates, the stories; then a wild launch into literature, novels, authors, poets; then the weather; then Mr. Warden was travelling, and relating his "hair-breadth escapes by flood and field," while bright-eyed Fanny listened in breathless interest. Then the open piano caught the irresistible Paul's eyes, and in a twinkling there was Fanny seated at it, her white fingers flying over the polished keys, and he bending above her with an entranced face. Then he was singing a delightful love-song in a melodious tenor voice, that might have captivated any heart that ever beat inside of lace and muslin; and then Fanny was singing a sort of response, it seemed to frantically jealous Tom; and then it was eleven o'clock, and time to go home.

Out in the open air, with the rainy night wind blowing bleakly, Tom lifted his hat to let the cold blast cool his hot face. He was sulky still, and silent--very silent; but Mr. Warden didn't seem to mind.

"So," he said, lighting a cigar, "the campaign has begun, the first blow has been struck, the enemy's ramparts undermined. Upon my word, Tom, the little girl is uncommonly pretty!"

"I told you so," said Tom, with a sort of growl.

"And remarkably agreeable. I don't think I ever spent a pleasanter _tete-a-tete_ evening."

"So I should judge. She had eyes, and ears, and tongue for no one but you."

"My dear fellow, it's not possible you're jealous! Isn't that what you wanted? Besides, there is no reason, really; she is a professional flirt, and understands her business; you and I know just how much value to put on all that sweetness. Have a cigar, my dear boy, and keep up your heart; we'll fix the flirting Fanny yet, please the pigs!"

This was all very true; but, somehow, it wasn't consoling. She was nothing to him, Tom, of course--and he hated her as hotly as ever; but, somehow, his thirst for vengeance had considerably cooled down. The cure was worse than the disease. It was maddening to a young man in his frame of mind to see those brilliant smiles, those entrancing glances, all those pretty, coquettish, womanly, wiles that had deluded him showered upon another, even for that other's delusion. Tom wished he had never thought of revenge, at least with Paul Warden for his handsome agent.

"Are you going there again?" he asked, moodily.

"Of course," replied Mr. Warden, airily. "What a question, old fellow, from you of all people. Didn't you hear the little darling telling me to call again? She overlooked you completely, by-the-by. I'm going again, and again, and yet again, until my friend, my _fides Achates_, is avenged."

"Ah!" said Tom, sulkily, "but I don't know that I care so much for vengeance as I did. Second thoughts are best; and it struck me, whilst I watched you both to-night, that it was mean and underhand to plot against a woman like this. You thought so yourself at first, you know."

"Did I? I forget. Well, I think differently now, my dear Tom; and as you remark, second thoughts are best. My honor is at stake; so put your conscientious scruples in your pocket, for I shall conquer the fascinating Fanny or perish in the attempt. Here we are at my boarding house--won't you come in? No. Well, then, good-night. By-the-way, I shall be at the enemy's quarters to-morrow evening; if you wish to see how ably I fight your battles, show yourself before nine. By-by!"

Mr. Maxwell's answer was a deeply bass growl as he plodded on his way; and Paul Warden, running up to his room, laughed lightly to himself.

"Poor Tom! Poor, dear boy! Jealousy is a green-eyed lobster, and he's a prey to it--the worst kind. Really, Paul, my son, little black eyes is the most bewitching piece of calico you have met in your travels lately; and if you wanted a wife, which you don't, you couldn't do better than go in and win. As it is--Ah! it's a pity for the little dear's sake you can't marry."