University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

Among those who had thus manifested a disposition
to win the favor of Delia Trevor, was a young
man who had, not long since, entered public life under
the auspices of a father, who, fifteen years before,
had openly bartered his principles for office. Besides
some talent, the son possessed the yet higher merit,
in the eyes of his superiors, of devotion to his party
and its leader. He never permitted himself to be restrained,
by any regard to time or place, from making
his zeal conspicuous. Taught, from his infancy, that
the true way to recommend his pretensiens was to
rate them highly himself, he seemed determined never
to exchange his place in the Legislature for any in the
gift of the Court, unless some distinguished station
should be offered to his acceptance. For any such, in
any department, he was understood to be a candidate.

At first, he supposed that a private intimation to
this effect, through his father, would be all sufficient.
But he was overlooked, and post after post, that he

would gladly have accepted, was conferred on others.
Fearful that he might be deemed deficient in zeal, he
redoubled his diligence, and with increased eagerness
sought every opportunity to display his talents and
his ardor in the service of his master. Still he seemed
no nearer to his object. Whether it was thought
that he was most serviceable in his actual station, or
that the wily President deemed it a needless waste
of patronage to buy what was his by hereditary title
and gratuitous devotion, it is hard to say. The
gentleman sometimes seemed on the point of becoming
malcontent; but his father, who had trained
him in the school of Sir Pertinax McSycophant,
convinced him that more was to be got by “booing,”
and resolute subserviency and flattery of the great,
than in any other way. Under such impressions, he
would kindle anew the fervor of his zeal and send
up his incense in clouds. Again disappointed, and
sickening into the moroseness of hope deferred, he
would become moody and reserved, as if watching
for an opportunity of profitable defection.

Such an opportunity, at such a moment, had seemed
to present itself in his acquaintance with Delin
Trevor. A connection with her seemed exactly suited
to his interested and ambidextrous policy. A handsome
and amiable girl were items in the account of
secondary consideration. But her fortune was not to
be overlooked. Then, should his services, at length,
seem like to meet their long deserved reward, she

could be presented at court as the niece of Mr. Hugh
Trevor, the tried and cherished friend of the President.
Should the cold ingratitude of his superiors at length
drive him into the opposition for advancement, he
was sure of being well received as the son-in-law of
a patriot so devoted as Mr. Bernard Trevor. Utrinque
paratus, could he secure the hand of Delia, he felt
sure that he must win, let the cards fall as they
might.

Having taken this view of the subject, and examined
it in all its bearings, he made up to Delia
with a directness which startled, and a confidence that
offended her. But the gentleman had little to recommend
him to the favor of the fair. His person was
awkward, and disfigured by a mortal stoop. His features,
at once diminutive and irregular, were either
shrouded with an expression of solemn importance,
or set off by a smile of yet more offensive self-complacency.
His manners bore the same general character
of conceit, alternately pert and grave; and his
conversation wavered between resolute, though abortive,
attempts at wit, and a sort of chopt logic,
elaborately employed in proving, by incontestible arguments,
what nobody ever pretended to deny. He
had been taught, by his learned and astute father, to
lay his foundations so deep that his arguments and
the patience of his hearers were apt to be exhausted
by the time he got back to the surface of things.
Yet he reasoned with great precision, and rarely

failed to establish, as unquestionable, the premises
from which other men commonly begin to reason.

This talent, and this use of it, are more applauded
by the world than one would think. Men like to be
confirmed in their opinions; and, the fewer and more
simple these may be, the more grateful are they for
any thing that looks like a demonstration of their
truth. To a man whose knowledge of arithmetic
only extends to the profound maxim “that two and
two make four,” how gratifying to find a distinguished
man condescending to prove it by elaborate
argument!

But ladies have little taste for these things, and
still less for the harsh dogmatism and fierce denunciations
of hostile, but absent politicians, with which
Mr. P. Baker, the younger, occasionally varied his
discourse. To Delia, therefore, the gentleman, in
and of himself, and apart from all extrinsic considerations,
was absolutely disagreeable. His first advances
drove her within the safe defences of female
pride and reserve. But when the manifest audacity
of his pretensions led her to think of him as the supple
slave of power, as one who had prostituted himself
to the service of his master, with an eagerness
which condemned his zeal to be its own reward, her
disgust increased to loathing, and her pride was
kindled into resentment. Without showing more of
these feelings than became her, she showed enough
to make her the object of his insolent and malignant

hatred. But she was fortified by her position in a
family which he dared not offend, and his paltry
malice found vent in such allusions to the politics of
the day as he knew must wound her.

Things were about coming to this pass, when
Douglas Trevor arrived. The first time he met Mr.
Baker in company with his cousin, he saw a disposition
on his part to pay attentions which were obviously
annoying to her. Both duty and inclination
impelled him to come to her relief; and, in doing
this, he awakened the jealousy and incurred the displeasure
of the gentleman. But these were feelings
he had no mind to display toward one who wore a
sword, and especially toward the son of a man so influential
at Washington as Mr. Hugh Trevor. He
accordingly drew off, in morose discomfiture, and
Delia, relieved from his offensive attentions, felt that
she owed her deliverance to her cousin. He was, of
course, bound to occupy the place at her side from
which he had driven Baker; and she was bound to
requite the service by making the duty he had imposed
on himself as little irksome as possible. She
exerted herself to be agreeable, and succeeded so
well, that Douglas went to bed that night in the
firm belief that he had never passed a more pleasant
evening, or seen a girl of more charming manners
than Delia.

This circumstance led to a sort of tacit convention,
which established him in the character of her

special attendant, in all parties where Mr. Baker
made his appearance. By an easy progress, this
engagement was extended to all societies and all
places. He knows little of human nature who needs
to be told the natural consequences of these things.

But, leaving the reader to form his own judgment,
and to anticipate such result as he may, my present
business is with the repulsed and irritated Baker.
Though it consoled his pride and self-love to impute
his discomfitures, not to any absolute dislike of himself,
but to a preference for another, there was nothing
in that preference to soothe his resentment. As
Douglas had, in the first instance, come somewhat
cavalierly between him and the object of his wishes,
he, perhaps, had reasonable grounds of displeasure
against him. But, as it might be quite inconvenient
to give vent to his feelings in that direction, they were
carefully repressed. In such assaults on those of the
lady, as her cousin might not observe, or might
think it unwise to notice, did his malice indulge
itself.

So matters stood when the astounding intelligence
reached Richmond, that a diplomatic agent from the
State of South Carolina had been long secretly entertained
at the Court of St. James, and that he was
supposed to have negotiated an informal arrangement
for a commercial treaty between that government
and the confederacy then forming in the South.
Something was rumored as to the terms of the

contemplated treaty, which filled the whole northern
faction in Virginia with consternation. It was feared
that that State could not be withheld from joining
the Southern League, except by force, and that, in a
contest of force, she would be backed, not only by
the southern States, but by the power of Great
Britain.