University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII.
REJECTED ADDRESSES.

CALLING at Seacliff next morning, I found Somerville,
but not alone. There was no guilt, no shame,
no anger in his eyes as they met mine, but only a
swift flash of inquiry, which softened instantly to a look of
friendly recognition and interest.

“We were talking of American society, Mr. Fitz Hugh,”
said he. “I was just observing that the great fault of our
national character is not so much downright vice as incompleteness.
The fruit is not rotten, it is only green.”

“I think,” observed I, “that the worst possible man is a
green American who has got rotten in Europe.”

My sarcasm, angrily as I had flung it, did not enter him,
but skimmed the shining surface of his self-possession, as a
pebble skims ice, without rippling the current below.

“I quite agree with you,” he blandly answered. “A creature
who is at once coarse and corrupt, is thoroughly useless
to humanity, not to say injurious. A gentleman in manners,
on the contrary, no matter how vicious, is a civilizer. He
teaches people to be clean, to be tasteful, to speak good
grammar, to avoid indecorums, and so on. An importation
of Chesterfields or even of Brummels, would be an immense
benefit to our society of hoydens and counter-jumpers.”

His proposition was startling, but to some extent correct.
His own influence at Seacliff was what he had just described,
eminently civilizing. Much as some of us disliked him,

much as all of us may have suspected him, a silent impulse
emanated from his walk and conversation, which refined us
externally, and made us seem, like him, better than we were.
In consequence of him Cousin Jule was less hoydenish than
her nature, the Van Leers less boorish, and Hunter less conceitedly
pert. Great is urbanity, great is decorum, and almost
worthy of being classed among the moralities.

Let us not, however, accord Somerville too much admiration
for his philosophy, considering that we had read it all,
ten days before, and doubtless he also, in an editorial of the
New York Censor. Behold another peculiarity of this ingenious,
this elaborate man of society. He quoted without
quotation marks, and made use of an author while cruelly
denying him an existence. His conversation was infused
with all the literary ideas of the day; his dinner-table efforts
smacked of poems, novels, histories, dailies, monthlies, quarterlies,
encyclopædias; and yet he constantly admitted and
lamented that he was no reader, thereby gaining vast reputation
among unbooked people, for originality and fecundity of
thought. How often have I enjoyed a malicious pleasure in
hearing the maxims of Rochefoucauld and the jokes of Voltaire
fall from his artless lips! He was a brilliant man,
however, notwithstanding that he was such a sham; and you
could not really despise him, even after you had discovered
all his tricks.

“I doubt whether we shall ever have a truly elegant
society in our republic,” he continued. “Caste is impossible
in a country which does not admit of eldest sons; and you
can no more have gentility without caste, than you can have
music without a scale.”

“Oh, but we have caste, Mr. Somerville,” observed Mrs.
Van Leer, rustling her patrician silks. “I am sure the
grades of New York society are ve—ry distinctly marked.
Don't you think Fifth Avenue aristocratic?”

“Whenever Mrs. Van Leer walks there,” bowed Somerville,
with a smile of jest strongly infused with flattery.

The lady bridled, wriggled, and simpered her gratitude.
“But it is so amusing sometimes to get among people of another
set,” she added with a giggle.

“Do you mean a lower set?” inquired I, maliciously.

“Of course!” she replied, frowning at the hint that there
could be a higher one than her own. “I mean or—dinary
sort of people, you know. How ve—ry divert—ing to watch
them!”

“Exactly,” sneered Genevieve; “to see them in all their
diversity of form and color; such monstrous, unnatural, outlandish
creatures; things with three legs—four—ten—perfect
centipedes; women with heads under their arms; men
who bow-wow instead of talking; that's the kind you mean,
isn't it, Cousin Jule? Precisely; ordinary sort of folks;
people who are not of our set.”

Genevieve was born an iconoclast, and delighted in grinding
golden calves to powder. Wherever she found an altar
of vanity, no matter in whose heart erected, or to what
mighty name inscribed, she fell to upsetting it with an
energy which was only redoubled by the anguish and the
pious resistance of its votary. The sentiment was partly, no
doubt, an honest indignation at shams, but partly too, I fear,
pugnacity and pleasure in satire. Fortunate for the interests
of truth is it that such natures are born into the world; but
it must be confessed that they are not the most agreeable
persons to have always about one; that they seem far better
adapted to converting obstinate cannibals than to making
civilized people happy. There are times when even optimists
and perfectionists are tempted to believe that humanity
is, to say the least, badly assorted. One relative, one intimate,
brings constant supplies of peace and joy to your soul,
while another is a blessing to you only when you consider
him or her in the light of a reproving and humbling judgment.
For my part, I am not one of those who rejoice in
such godsends. Left to myself, I would accept the risk of
dispensing with them, and would cheerfully see them bestowed

on the ends of the earth and the isles of the sea.
Often have I wished of some of my unconquerable friends,
that they would take a fancy to New Zealand or the Marquesas;
wished it, I am not ashamed to say, less for the
spiritual good of the tattooed populations than for my own
temporal comfort. Besides, their presence would be relished
there, and cannibaldom would prosper on their good qualities.
In fact, it would afford me a sneaking kind of pleasure
to hear of several excellent persons whom I can't bear,
that they had come as near as possible to being entertainment
for man and beast; and even supposing them actually served
up for a roast or a chowder, I am afraid that I could hardly
bring myself to dissent from the universal New Zealand verdict
of, Served them right.

Somerville answered Genevieve in a way that was characteristic
of him. “It is hopeless,” said he, with a sigh and
a smile; “we shall never have an aristocracy; the very
persons who should constitute it ridicule it.”

No thanks, not even a look, did he get for his compliment.
Genevieve only pouted her lips and gave a vindictive toss to
her handsome head, as she muttered, “The very persons
who should constitute it, disgrace it.”

“You ought to pardon a fallen adversary,” said Somerville,
with a quizzical affectation of humility.

“Not necessarily. The devil is a fallen adversary. We
are not bound to pardon him, I suppose.”

“Why, Genevieve! you are awfully personal,” laughed
Mrs. Van Leer. “You ought to have said that you didn't
refer to Mr. Somerville, instead of going on to make odious
comparisons.”

“I am not at all personal,” retorted the satirist. “It is
not personality to throw a fools-cap on the floor. Nobody is
obliged to pick it up.”

“No, it is not personality; it is legitimate satire,” observed
Somerville, blandly. “Miss Genevieve deserves commendation
for the make up of her fools-caps, and the ease

with which she pitches them out. I admire them so much
that I should be only too proud to find one that fitted
me.”

He had not once put up the calm smile that he wore as a
vizor, nor shown in any way that he seriously took her sarcasms
as referring to himself. She looked as if she could
cry with rage at the failure of her attack; but his smooth
impudence had beaten her, and she said nothing more to
him.

“Jenny, you are cut out for an old maid,” observed Cousin
Jule. “I never knew a satirical girl that had an offer.”

“Well, what matter?” replied Genevieve, with a forced
gayety which did not hide how much she had been badgered.
“I suppose that most girls would rather die young than be
old maids. It is different with me. I would rather be an
old maid than take a man I did not want. No, it is not
exactly that, either. I would rather die young than not
have the man of my choice.”

“I am sure it will not be the fault of our sex if you meet
with an early death,” said Somerville, bowing in the very
humility of gallantry.

At this compliment Genevieve was furiously provoked,
although speechlessly. It would have been laughable to see
her eyes sparkle so, had I not known all the while that she
was raging at the spectral presence of the family mystery.

Presently Mrs. Westervelt looked into the room and beckoned
to Jenny. “Come, dear,” said she. “Come, Robert.
Mr. Fitz Hugh, excuse us; we have an errand to do. You
will join us afterwards in boating, I hope.”

Genevieve and Robert followed her; and we heard carriage
wheels roll away.

Somerville turned to Miss Westervelt and began to prate
pictures, a subject for which she had a passion, and with which
accordingly he often angled for her attention.

One secret of this man's social success was, that he had a
cameleon-like mind, and could suit his tastes to his company.

He talked dress with Mrs. Westervelt, stocks with her husband,
coquetry with Cousin Jule, fishing and horses with the
Van Leer brothers, books with me, and handled each subject
cleverly, tastefully, and, to all appearance, zestfully. He
could throw himself into the idiosyncrasy of each of us with
a power which was seemingly greater than that of his interlocutor,
and so could delight and influence us easily, at least
until we had learned to fathom and hate him. This adaptability
is a wonderful means to popularity, and its superficial
gilt passes better in society than the solid ore of real genius.
Had I known Somerville when I was several years younger,
I should probably have been completely fascinated by him;
and so in truth I might have been as it was, had he not come
across my path as a rival and an enemy. No genius, I say
again, but a creature of extraordinary talents, who, had he
been moved by a noble ambition, might have achieved high
honors and wide respect.

While he talked to Miss Westervelt, and I speculated in
silence whether he had overheard our last evening's conversation
concerning him, and whether he would try to punish
us for it, Mrs. Van Leer, finding herself neglected, fretted
like a lapdog which is not caressed to its liking. She went
out and came in again; took up a book and pretended to
read; threw it down and pouted undisguisedly.

“Come, Mr. Fitz Hugh, let us quit these æsthetic people,”
she said at last. “I vote that you and I take a prosaic stroll
in the garden. I don't feel myself fit company for persons
who talk blank verse.”

“No no, Cousin Jule! stay here,” commanded Mary. “I
don't approve this pairing off. If you go, I shall go with
you.”

Quitting Somerville in the middle of a sentence, she came
across the room, sewing-work in hand, and took an ottoman
between Mrs. Van Leer and myself. There was nothing in
the man's face which showed that he felt vexed at the slight,
or that it reminded him of any promise which had been made

to distrust and detest him. His eye followed her tranquilly,
and then he addressed Mrs. Van Leer with a smile of amiable
badinage.

“Miss Westervelt has deprived Mr. Fitz Hugh of a great
pleasure.”

“Do you hear that?” laughed the gay lady. “Mr. Somerville
has a proper appreciation of my society. Do you
understand, Mr. Fitz Hugh?”

I looked non-comprehension with all my might.

“Why, what a short mem—ory you have!” she continued.
“I'm sure that I heard a lady propose to you only a minute
ago, to take a walk with her in the gar—den.”

“Indeed!” said I. “Well, I think I must have declined
on account of the heat. What other reason could there be?”

“Oh! oh!” she replied in a pet. “How very thoughtful
of your complex—ion! Well, perhaps you were not invited
after all; in fact, I don't think you were, except merely to see
if you had any gallantry. It is perfectly aw—ful to see how
the gallantry of an American gentleman dies away if he once
visits Europe. Mr. Somerville is only an excep—tion to the
rule. There is Robert, now, who has never been out of
America, has ten times the devotion of Mr. Fitz Hugh.
Don't you think so, Mary? Don't you think he is a model
of fidelity, self-sacrifice, and all that sort of thing? You
ought to acknowledge it, of all persons. Come, do speak,
and give the poor boy his dues.”

Miss Westervelt colored deeply, tried to cover her embarrassment
by laughing, and stammered out, “How can you,
Jule! He is not a Bayard, but he is a kind, good-hearted
cousin. You ought to be ashamed if you are laughing at
him.”

“I am not laugh—ing at him. I admire him. Such a
faith—ful, whole-souled fellow! I wish I had a cavalier as
devo—ted.”

“So you have, Jule,” said Mary, half reproachfully. “You
have your husband, who is every whit as good as Robert.”

“Oh! I for—got that I was married,” replied the coquette.
“Exact—ly! Henry is a good fellow, too. I ought
to look him up now.”

“If you want to know where he is,” said I mischievously,
“he is in the garden. You will find him under the lilacs.”

She gave me a glance of indignation, and marched directly
out of the room.

Somerville caught her parting look, and came over to me
with a face of mock expostulation so varnished with smiles
that you could hardly see its insolence.

“My dear Mr. Fitz Hugh!—excuse me if I remonstrate.”

“What is the matter?” said I, with a poor affectation of
not perceiving his meaning.

“First, allow me to congratulate you on your belle fortune,”
he continued, pretending to speak low, but making himself
plainly audible to Miss Westervelt.

“I don't understand you,” said I, trying in my desperation
to browbeat him into silence with a wrathful stare.

“But it is a very great pity that she is married,” he persisted,
still smiling.—“Married, if not mated.”

“I don't see, sir—the point—what does this mean, Mr.
Somerville?” I answered, stammering as a young fellow is
apt to do when he is choked by a guilty conscience. “Do
you allude to Mrs. Van Leer?”

“To Mrs. Van Leer?” he repeated with a momentary
show of his teeth. “Oh! perhaps we have made a discovery.
Is that the way your conscience points? But, really,” (in a
wicked whisper,) “have you thought of her husband?”

Miss Westervelt, whose face was burning red by this time,
suddenly started up as if about to leave the room. A second
thought checked her; perhaps she feared that if left to ourselves
we would come to blows; she stepped to the window
and gazed steadily out of it, with the air of being far away
from a conversation, which to her was an insult. I rose also,
and turned my back on Somerville, knowing full well that if
I looked him in the face I should strike him. Yet my anger

was almost confounded by my amazement; for, while such a
coarse and brutal attack was stupefying enough in itself, it
was doubly so coming from a man who had hitherto been our
great exemplar of courtesy, and between whom and myself
there had been no quarrel, nor even any ground of quarrel
which might be uttered. He had not insulted me, I knew,
in awkwardness, or in a sudden flurry of passion, but as consciously
and deliberately as if he had taken a wager to do it.
Let me render him full justice while I am about it. I have
no doubt that it grated on his gentlemanly feelings to utter
such questionable innuendoes in the presence of a modest girl,
and that he would have avoided them if he could have
gained his ends otherwise. But necessity is a hard master,
and even a Somerville must sometimes make his better nature
bend to it. After glancing at his unfinished plans, and
weighing nicely every probability which would go to make
or moil them, he felt himself forced to attack my character before
Miss Westervelt, and he did it with regret and a smile.
What he had said would have been nothing to a good
conscience, sound in wind and limb; but mine, alas! had
shaky knees, and could hardly stand up against an insinuation
weighted with the name of Mrs. Van Leer. With what an
enraged repentance I cursed all my silly flirtation with that
woman, and how virtuously I resolved to avoid in future even
the appearance of evil!

It was Bob Van Leer who broke that moment of insupportable
silence; and I blessed him for the interruption,
little thinking that I should soon be tempted to trump my
benison with a malediction.

“Hullo! Somerville!” he roared, from somewhere out by
the garden gate. “I say, Somerville! Come along. The
ladies are down to the boat waiting for you,”

“Excuse me,” said our Chesterfield. “Mr. Van Leer and
I are to do the rowing. You go, I believe, Miss Westervelt.”

“I have a headache,” she replied, without looking at him.
“Tell them not to wait for me.”

He walked out while I was hesitating whether I should
murder him immediately or on some subsequent occasion.
Then words, which I could not perhaps have spoken, trembled
in my throat, and I turned to Miss Westervelt almost
resolved to plead my case boldly with her, and to pray that
she would not condemn me out of the mouth of Somerville.
But I had no time to address her, for Bob suddenly loomed
in one of the windows opening on the veranda, a blush as
big as a bonfire blazing up on his broad cheek, as he put
his head between the curtains, stared earnestly at my companion,
surveyed every corner of the room with irresolute
troubled eyes, and finally set to winking at me nervously.
Puzzled and somewhat startled by these evidences of extraordinary
excitement, I hurried out and asked him what he
meant.

“I say, old feller,” he whispered, “the ride has done me
good. I think I've got my courage up. I'm going to pop
the question. You just clear out and give me a chance.”

He marched directly into the house, turning upon me as
he stumbled through the doorway, a face of woful anxiety
which must have been like a reflection of my own. There
was no help for it, no decent way of stopping him; and so
I hurried homeward, feeling myself to be one of the most
miserable idiots alive. Was ever a man placed in a situation
so wretched and yet so ludicrous? Here I was, getting
away from Seacliff as fast as I decorously could, whistling
loudly to show that I was going, and all that a fellow, whose
witlessness I daily laughed over, might have a chance to rob
me of my supremest idol. I reached Pa Treat's after what
seemed like a fortnight's march, walked up stairs on my
head for aught I know, entered my room, locked the door,
drew a chair to the window, bestrode it, looked out moodily
on the Sound, thought of the gay old world which I had
left beyond those waves, and resolved that, if dollars won
the day, Europe should soon welcome me back. Then my
mind wandered up to Seacliff, and peered in upon Bob as

he made his offer. Now he is talking love, I muttered; now
he is taking her trembling hand in his; now the idiot is,
perhaps, going on his clumsy knees; now she blushes and
seems for a moment to refuse him; now she turns pale and
whispers a word which drives me crazy; now he springs to
his feet and—I spring to mine, knocking the chair over. On
that chair, and by that window, I passed what the French
call “a bad quarter of an hour.”

Dinner-time came, and, to save appearances, I tried to
eat and talk as usual. Then I returned to my room and
smoked several cigars in quick succession, without noticing
how many, until I saw the stumps lying all together on the
table. Finally, hearing Johnny Treat's short-winded footsteps
thumping up the stairway, I rushed into the passage to
seek distraction in the society of that small sinner, whose
character for total depravity would of course render him
particularly congenial to my feelings at such a moment.
Seriously, I was in a state of mind which rendered me just
fit to tag after Johnny Treat.

“Where are you going, Johnny?” I asked.

“Goin up garret,” responded the urchin, with his usual
solemn brevity, so proper for an infant loaded with his spiritual
responsibilities and terrors.

“I'll go up with you,” said I; and we gravely mounted
together.

The garret was a favorite resort of Johnny's, and no despised
place of recreation with myself. In regard to climate
it was an epitome of the vast and various world we live in,
being as hot in summer as the torrid zone, and as frigid in
winter as the polar circle. Winds it had of its own, and
rains and snows too; for the leaky old roof let in copious
samples of the elements. Every time that a storm burst
along our shore Ma Treat rushed up garret and stationed
there a garrison of pails and milkpans, into which the big
drops pattered fluently with a sort of juicy tinkle. There
was always a powerful odor of rats about the apartment,

which must have made it pleasant to a grimalkin; and by
night a four-footed clamor broke out there, which made me
dream that I was in Noah's ark, and had a state-room under
the vermin deck. Whether these attic wits acted charades,
or had fancy balls, or played ten-pins with the corn-cobs, or
set the old trumpery in the corners, to rights, or snowballed
each other with bits of plaster, I cannot say, but the noise
sounded like a little of everything as I lay in my bedroom
below. By day all these energetic workers and revellers
were as quiet as ghosts, except an occasional gallop behind
the laths, or a squeaking oath at intruders delivered through
some hole in the flooring.

The garret was chiefly valuable in my eyes through its
congregation of worthless old furniture. Rush-bottomed
chairs, with no bottoms and decrepit backs; a grenadier
clock, which had stopped ticking during the battle of Bunker
Hill; a nail-cask full of tattered deeds, accounts, and letters,
showing how the Treats had once been a noticeable family;
a lame wash-stand, burnt-out foot-stove, broken-winded bellows,
bottomless pails, one leg of a tongs, and corn-cobs in
superfluity; such was the array of curiosities which encumbered
the floor and disordered the corners of this interesting
seclusion. It was not by any means a rich collection, considering
the antiquity of the house, but it was nevertheless a
prodigious comfort in rainy weather.

One object there was which deserves particular notice, and
which I have omitted to mention thus far, not out of forgetfulness,
but out of pure reverence, because it did not seem
proper to speak of the weapon of an old Puritan soldier, in
the same breath with shovels and tongs. This weapon was a
long, cut-and-thrust sword, straight in the blade, heavily
hilted, ponderous, dull, and rusty, but withal of a most
fiercely orthodox aspect, as if it were just the thing to hew
a catholic or an episcopalian in pieces before the Lord. To
this ancient side arm belonged a history which made it a
precious heirloom to the Treats, and caused its preservation
in all their ups and downs of fortune.

It seems that the first Treat who possessed it was one of
the early settlers of Hartford, in Connecticut. He lived in a
cabin situated at some distance from the village, and supported,
beside his wife and children, a grandfather who had
become very venerable and correspondingly dilapidated.
The Pequot war broke out, and the Pequot braves made
themselves disagreeably useful in sending to glory all the
Puritans that they could lay their copper-colored hands upon.
Goodman Treat came home at noon one day to find that his
dinner and his cabin had been burnt together, and that a band
of yelling savages was posted between him and Hartford.
His wife and children had escaped in some way not specified
by tradition, though probably, according to the praiseworthy
custom of those days, by following the guidings of
Providence; but the best that his grandfather had been able
to do for himself was to crawl into the garden with the family
sword in his hands, and hide among the cornstalks. Goodman
Treat stumbled over him and piously resolved to save
him. Taking down a clothes-line, he strapped the old gentleman
securely across his own broad shoulders, as Eneas did
by Anchises, and then, drawing his sword, marched to encounter
the enemy.

A hundred Indians met him, and both sides charged together.
The savages yelled after their unmelodious fashion,
and the two white men replied with nine cheers and a tiger.
Goodman Treat cut, thrust, and parried with such dexterity
that not a tomahawk touched him, while his trusty blade
snipped off Pequot heads and arms as easily as asparagus tops.
His grandfather held still and cheered him on, which was the
most that the ancient worthy could do under the circumstances.
The Indians were resolved to get the two scalps,
but Goodman Treat was equally resolved to disappoint them;
and he trudged on steadily, heroically, striking right, striking
left, thrusting ahead, and leaving behind him two winrows of
bisected savages to enrich his clearing. Heaven favored
him, or something did, for he cut his way through the painted

host and reached Hartford without having been either hurt
or frightened. But alas! his triumph was embittered by a
terrible bereavement. He had not been able to parry quite
as dexterously behind as before, and when he unloosed his
clothes-line he found that he possessed but the remnant of a
grandfather. The Pequot tomahawks had made sad work
with the old gentleman; his head, legs, and arms had successively
fallen into the hands of the enemy; and there was
scarce enough left of him to keep on his doublet.

Subsequent to this affair, Goodman Treat gloriously distinguished
himself and horribly avenged his ancestor, in the
successful expedition against the fort of Sassacus. He died
in his bed at last, after a long life of piety and Indian fighting,
and went to a better world, where he is now, very probably,
engaged in driving Pequot ghosts out of their Happy
Hunting-Grounds.

Johnny's object in coming up garret was evidently to play
at soldiering with the old sword. For some time he stood
glowring at it with a countenance of exceeding reverence
and desire; then he ventured to take it in both hands, then
to draw it, and finally to march about with it on his shoulder.
It was a naughty luxury, a solitary vice, to which he
rarely dared treat himself. Ma Treat had set her flinty face
against this love of cold steel, considering that it fostered a
bloodthirsty, unchristian spirit which might end in making
the boy a pirate, a highwayman, or a soldier. It was in vain
to plead the example and the glory of her husband's pious
ancestor, the illogical creature always discomfitted you by
replying that there were no Pequots nowadays, to speak of,
and that Johnny's grandfathers were both dead and out of
harm's way ever so long ago. “Besides,” she sometimes
added, “the child might cut his own nose off, and gracious
knows that he hasn't any to spare.”

“Johnny,” said I, after watching the perspiring lad for
some minutes, as he tramped up and down the hot garret,—
“Johnny, why do you like to carry that sword?”

“Because I am a wicked boy,” droned Johnny, with that
depraved indifference to the awful fact, which so often excited
the grief of his grandmother.

“And what do you merit for your wickedness?” I asked.

“The pains of hell, forever,” responded Johnny, in the
same tone of monstrous unconcern.

“And what next, Johnny?”

“That's as far as I go,” he replied, stopping his parade and
looking at me anxiously, as if fearful that I was about to
urge him a step further into that slough of despond, the
catechism.

“Well,” said I, “that's far enough, Johnny.”

I suppose it will be seen that I was trying to pass away
time and kill reflection. The garret could not amuse me
long, and I went back to my room to fight my Pequots
alone. Twenty times I seized my hat, resolved to rush up
to Seacliff and know the worst at once; but twenty times I
threw it down again, to drop feeble and purposeless into my
rocking-chair. It was about three o'clock, I think, that I
heard a slow, sullen step on my stairway, followed by a
timid knock at my door.

“Come in,” said I; and Robert Van Leer entered. If I
had been a girl, conscious that this was a lover come to propose
to me, my heart could not have beat faster. He stared
at me for one moment with haggard eyes, and then, dragging
his Kossuth hat over his face, burst into tears. I pitied him,
but I could have laughed for joy.

“I'm done for!” he sobbed. “Oh, Fitz Hugh! I shall
go into a consumption. I wish I could!”

“But you can't, Bob,” said I; “so don't waste your time
in trying it. Bait your hook again, and heave it somewhere
else. There are plenty of other fish in the sea just as fine
as this one.”

Perhaps it was no lie that I uttered, but I believed that it
was, and felt correspondingly guilty.

“No there ain't,” he muttered. “And that ain't the worst

of it. Now she'll have Somerville. He's after her,—and
she must like him; she must like somebody, or she wouldn't
have sacked me.”

“He shan't have her!” exclaimed I. “I'll take her myself,
first; that is if I can get her.”

“Will you, though?” returned the good-souled, unselfish
fellow, his broad face lighting up a little. “I wish you would.
I swear, I don't know anybody I'd like to have her better
than you. That Somerville is a rascal, I believe; he'd make
her miserable.”

My offer and promise could not comfort him so thoroughly
but that he went away at last in wretchedly low spirits.