Page:Sylvester Sound the Somnambulist (1844).djvu/33

 "My dearest boy!" said Aunt Eleanor. "Oh, I am sorry that we've disturbed you."

Sylvester sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes, and then looked at the reverend gentleman, precisely as if lie wished to know who he was and what he wanted.

"Lie down, dear, again," said Aunt Eleanor, soothingly. "You must be fatigued, dear: you look very weary still."

The reverend gentleman shook his head, and that, too, with so much significance, that any close observer might at once have perceived that Sylvester was, in his view, very artful. Aunt Eleanor, however, did not observe this; she felt that the "mistake" had been sufficiently seen, and, therefore, left the chamber, followed by her reverend friend.

"Well!" said that gentleman, on his return to the parlour, "Really! Upon my word, he bears a very striking resemblance to the youth whom I saw upon my garden wall!"

"Indeed! Well, that is strange," returned Aunt Eleanor, "I know of no youth at all like him."

"There must be one in the vicinity whom he very much resembles!"

"How very extraordinary! Why, whom can it be!"

"Indeed, 1 know not," returned the reverend gentleman, "there appears to be some little mystery about it, which probably time will solve. I have only to say that I am sorry the affair happened, and beg to apologise for the trouble I have given."

At this moment Sylvester entered the room in the same dress as that in which he appeared upon the wall, and no sooner had he entered, than the pastor—who now, of course, felt quite convinced of his being the delinquent—said, "Well, young gentleman, did you enjoy those peaches?"

Sylvester looked at him earnestly for a moment, and then observed, calmly, "What peaches do you allude to? I do not know that I have tasted a peach this season!"

The reverend gentleman hereupon regarded him with an expression of horror! He felt it to be awful in the extreme! and shuddered at the thought that a falsehood so flagrant should proceed from the lips of a sinner so young! Recovering himself, however, from the shock thus produced, he, with an aspect of severity, said, "Pray, sir, have you ever heard or read of Ananias?"

"I have, sir. But why put that question to me?"

"Because you have said distinctly that you have not, to your knowledge, tasted a peach this season; whereas, within the last half hour I saw you upon my garden-wall, eating my peaches to absolute satiety!"

"Let me assure you, sir," returned Sylvester, firmly, "that you are mistaken. I feel that I am utterly incapable of such bad conduct."

The calmness, the firmness, the apparent truthfulness with which this assurance was given, had a manifest tendency to shake the reverend gentleman's conviction. And yet—was it possible that he could be mistaken? There stood the very youth! or if he were not the very youth, how strong was the resemblance! He had preached the fallibility of the flesh: he felt that he himself was not, in a general sense, infallible: but then, in this particular,—and yet the very presence—the very look—the very