University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
MRS. WADHAM IS INTERESTED.

In Eastham, at that time, was living a Mrs. Malvina
Wadham, who had two sons at St. Bart's, and who
heard, in due course, the defective and conjectural
story of Antony Brade. For her, indeed, all ears
were wells into which ran countless underground rills
of information, and out of which she drew, as she
pleased.

To Mrs. Wadham few things were impossible. Her
style of self-assertion was of this sort: “When I say
a thing's got to be done, it must be a very strange
case, — that don't often occur, — or it's got to be done,
just as I say. When I put down my foot” (and she
was in the habit of putting down one of her solid
instruments of locomotion), “something” (very emphatically,
and with a pause) “has got to start.” She
had sent her husband out to some far land of promise
to make his fortune, while she administered, at home,
what was generally thought to be a pretty snug fortune,
already made. That she should take comfort out
of it, if she did (“though Dear knows,” she said, “the
worry of managing so much — the brain-work and
the mind-work — is worth more than any satisfaction
there is in it),” — but if she did take comfort in it, she
“had a good right to,” she said, “for it was by her

advice, and by her lookin' to things, and seein' to
every thing and advisin', that it was what it was. She
hoped his children would realize that. Her advice
had always been jest right, — jest the thing that was
wanted.”

The name was said to have come, by some law of
“development,” through “Wad-DELL” from — shall we
say it? We do not like to confess, but yet, after all,
do find a certain pleasure in it. The “origin” of this
“species” was “Waddle.”

This lady lived in Eastham, in a house which illustrated
her assertion of herself. She had bought a small
bit of ground, and run up upon it a slight, thin, spreading
structure of boards, with gables and bows, and
bays, and pinnacles, and pendicles, and dormer-windows,
and (for any thing that we know) a clere-story,
and something atop that was not a clear story, but
half-roof; and so had covered her ground up. Then
she had hired a barn, of a farm-house close by, for
“her carriages and horses,” and she was complete.
“It's only a summer veranda — I call it. That's just
what it is, — only a summer veranda. It'll do for me
in my widowhood,” she said pleasantly, “and when
I go away, I shall sell it; and that's the last of it, as
far as I'm concerned. — That's all there is about it.”

Climbers and creepers everywhere, and flowers in
pots on the piazzas and window-sills, had supplied the
place of trees and shrubs in summer; and now what
were left of them made a fresh and cheery house inside.
A good solid wood fire was blazing one November
morning, on handsome French andirons, toward which
Mrs. Wadham was stretched nearly at full length in
her chair.

This lady, as we have said, had heard of Antony
Brade and what there was of his story, and still more
what there was not of it, and she reasoned about it in
this way: “Who says you can't find out a boy's history,
and his antecedents?” (this word with much distinctness).
“I should like to see a boy that I couldn't find
out, if I tried to” (and it is to be borne in mind that
her face was very square, and very set, — when it was
set, — and rather hard).

Her daughter Minette (whom, for some reason of
their own, the young men of her acquaintance called
“Toby”) was much like her mother, perhaps, in substance,
but smoothed off considerably by some years
of costly education. To her, too, it seemed that the
secret of the boy might be found out. They both
agreed, — the mother that any thing of that sort ought to
be known; and the daughter, that any thing of that sort
might as well be known. “There was no occasion for
any concealment,” the mother said: “if a thing was
honest and honorable, there was no necessity for it;
and if there was any thing wrong about it, it hadn't
any right to be concealed, and the sooner it was known
the better for all parties.”

The mysterious character of the Ryan family was by
no means unknown or unconsidered by the Wadhams.

“I'm sure, Ma,” said the daughter, “there's nothing
about them: they're just like any other family that
has risen up. The mother 's not educated much, — a
foreigner. The girl's a bright girl, — I know from
having her in my Sunday class, — and she's lady-like
enough, considering she can't have had advantages of
society, and all that; and then,” continued Miss Minette,
making a concession that not every young lady

will make, even in case of a person whom she does not
consider quite on her own level, “she's pretty.”

“Yes, baby-pooty,” said the elder: “big blue eyes,
and a smooth skin and a dab of red; but then, as you
say, where does all their money come from? I say
they're employed, most likely, to have an eye to this
young heir to — whatever he's heir to; for I take it”
(dropping her voice, and giving a tone of inquiry to it,
and looking scrutinizingly at her single listener) “he's
heir to something, if it's only a common fortune, and
no title nor nothing.”

But the daughter had either heard much less, or
attached much less importance to what she had heard,
for she said, —

“I can't see exactly what ground there is for supposing
any connection between that boy and this
family. Why couldn't he be as great as you please,
and yet go to school, like anybody else, without a
family set to watch over him secretly?”

The mother was equal to meeting this suggestion.

“Why! that's their way of doing things, that's all.
Yes, that's their way. Why! he bears it on his front,
I'm sure, unmistakable; and he has the finest of every
thing, — no matter how I know it, but I know it, —
the finest of cloth for his coat, and his vest, and his
pants, and the best of shirts, French fashion, and
handkerchiefs, plenty of 'em all, and all of the best
(I've seen 'em); and all marked and numbered just as
pooty”—

“But all that,” said the daughter, who seemed to
have powers of reasoning at least equal to those of her
mother, “don't show what the Ryans have to do with
him. It may all be, — and I don't say it is not; only I

don't see what reason there is for thinking so. I don't
see any objection to any one's following up this clue (in
a proper manner, of course); and if it leads to the
Ryans, or through the Ryans, why, then he'll find out
two secrets, instead of one.”

The good-natured tone in which she spoke disarmed
the otherwise formidable and murderous-sounding
words “to the Ryans or through them” of any terrors.

“Then you agree,” said the mother, as if right and
wrong, in any case about which they formed judgments,
were settled by the agreement of the court,
— “you agree that it would be well to find this thing
out, — to probe it to the bottom. Now my way would
be this: I should go straight to head-quarters. I
should” —

“But, Mother,” said the daughter, “you can't make
it your business” —

“That isn't the way I should do it, at all,” interrupted
the mother, in her turn. “You don't understand. I
shouldn't make it my business. I should go — where's
Eldridge?” she asked, interrupting herself in the middle
of a sentence; and then, looking round and not seeing
him, she proceeded: “I should go to Saint Bartholomew's
School, and I should say, `I want to see your
alcoves' (any parent, or anybody, has a right to go and
demand to see every alcove at any time, to see what the
accommodations are, and how they're kep' up). Mr.
Parmenter maintains that principle. He likes to have
'em goin' and then comin' and tellin' him, so's to show
that he looks after things up there. Anybody is; an'
I've got two sons there.”

“But, Mother,” interposed Miss Minette, “you
wouldn't want to go and demand” —

“That isn't the way I should do it,” said the mother,
who seemed equal to any emergency. “You don't
understand. I say anybody's got the right. I wa'n't
a-goin' to use it. I should go there to see the alcoves.
I should find out from Albert — no, from Edmund (our
Edmund) — which Brade's was, and one or two more.
I should have a friend with me. I should say, `Look
here! this alcove is very pooty, or neat, or snug,' whichever
it might be; and I should see all there was there.
Then I should send for the boys, `with Mrs. Wadham's
compliments,' and apologize to 'em for having made free
with their alcoves; and I should send for Brade last,
and I should compliment him, and put him in good
humor; and then I should mention, incidentally, souveneers
from home, and make alloosions; and then, if I saw
that he was close, I should say, `Never mind, dear, —
another time: it'll do jest as well.'”

As Mrs. Wadham said this, in a very small and tender
voice, she patted, with fat and many-ringed fingers, the
air, which, perhaps, to her quick mind, represented the
head of the mysterious boy. Having finished this scene,
she presented another.

“And if I should find his heart tender, and his eyes
swimmin', I should jest draw him up to me” (here she
suited the action to the word, and drew up to her the
shapeless air), “and tell him to put his head on my
bosom, and think I was his mother, and what a tender
name that was! — there wasn't any thing like a mother;
and not to be afraid to confide in me, for I was used to
such things. So I should sort o' pave the way, you
see.”

Here she made a gesture with both hands, not quite
like any form of paving, but something like brushing

slight trifles out of the way, which, perhaps, was as
much in her thoughts.

“Well, — but, Mother, what would Mrs. Warren
think?” asked the daughter.

“Fiddles!” said Mrs. Wadham, loftily, “for what any
body thinks, when you're in the right.” Then, being
carried off her feet (metaphorically) on the tide of her
own words: “Civility is a very good thing; and
courtesy is a very good thing; and ceremony, and
politeness, and all that, — all very good things; but
not to interfere with dooty. Ceremony's one thing,
dooty's another.”

“But, Mother,” interposed the daughter once more,
“Mrs. Warren might be hurt, if you” —

“I shall make it all right with Mrs. Warren,” said Mrs.
Wadham with dignity, feeling that she was older than
her daughter. “I shall make a point of sending for
Mrs. Warren, and tell her, in a lady-like way, `I hope I
haven't interfered with any of her arrangements in
exercising my privilege of visitation; and I'm happy to
find (if it should be so) that she doesn't need any sudgestions,'
— not reproof, nor instructions, — I shouldn't
use that word, — `doesn't need any sudgestions.' That
will make that all right.”

The daughter, who bade fair to be one day as big as
her mother, and perhaps to carry as much moral weight,
was not yet quite able to withstand the solid bulk of
her mother's advance, and perhaps, indeed, was inclined,
by curiosity, to let her go on.

At the moment, catching sight of some one coming
toward the open parlor-door, she got up from her chair
and walked toward him; but her mother, who kept herself
in the practice of putting things together, having

observed her look, or hearing a footstep, called out
promptly, —

“Eldridge! Oh, it ain't Eldridge,” she said, as no
answer came.

“Mr. Greenwood,” said the daughter, and a small,
soft-voiced, sharp-faced, and rather melancholy-looking
gentleman, wishing the ladies “good day,” came in and
was made welcome.

“Fine growing weather!” he said, as he sat down, after
squeezing his soft hat into a pocket, and rubbed his hands
together.

“I do'no' what you'd grow in it,” said Mrs. Wadham,
“unless you mean grow cold. It's cold enough, I'm sure,
for this time o' the year,” and so she poked the fire, and,
with a vigorous thrust or two, brought forth obedient
flames.

“Oh!” said Mr. Greenwood, stretching out one leg,
and rubbing the side of the knee, “didn't they use to
call these growing pains?” and the face looked suddenly
and unaccountably droll.

Miss Minette smiled an appreciative smile. The
mother set her face with a special grimness, and then
formally relaxed the special grimness, and said, —

“Oh, a joke!” then paused. “What do you think of
our mystery now?” she added, after giving time for
things to settle from her guest's humorous effort, which
chilling pause he seemed to enjoy under his sadness, as
did Miss Minette, who laughed a short laugh.

“Oh,” said Mr. Greenwood, “isn't that all settled yet?
I hear but one opinion; but then you know I live a very
retired and studious life.”

“Settled! How?” exclaimed the solid lady of the
house, turning round upon her chair and facing him,

with the poker in her hand, and a fixed and steadfast
gaze in her face, her chin being a little dropped, and
her mouth hanging a little way open.

Mr. Greenwood certainly could be as sad-looking at
times, by nature or habit, as if the whole of life and
the world, and whatsoever is and whatsoever appears,
were a standing painful mystery to him. He was, when
one looked into his eyes, especially sad-looking. Miss
Minette seemed already amused, or ready to be
amused.

“I thought it was all settled that he was a young
foreigner,” said the visitor, giving little encouragement
to any expectation of fun, but speaking very seriously
and gravely.

“Oh!” said the lady, with a toss of her poker, “that's
an old story, — that isn't up to the times. He's a foreigner,
we know. Now the question is, what sort of a
foreigner? If we've got a young dooke, or a prince, or
a premier among us, I think we ought to know it, —
I do! I think it's no more than our dooty to society.”
And again she fixed her gaze upon him squarely.

“Well,” said Mr. Greenwood, “society's a good
thing: let's discharge our obligations to her. You
say he's a Russian?”

“No, I didn't say he was a Russian; but it wouldn't
be strange if he was a Russian. But he may be a Russian,
or he may be a Cir-cassian. What's the great
difference, when you get to foreigners, provided, mind
you, that they belong to the upper classes? Only, if
there's any deception, we ought to know it. Deception's
tryin' to outwit us, — that's what deception is;
and we mustn't let 'em.”

“I'm sure,” said Mr. Greenwood, solemnly and earnestly,

“I'm willing to give my little help to the detection
of a plot against society.”

“'Taint consistent with our republican institootions,”
she said, taking a fresh start.

To this Mr. Greenwood answered deliberately that
“he was not sure that it was.” “And then,” said he,
“if your sons are likely to be associating with a duke
in disguise, or a Czar of Bohemia, you've a right to
know what company they're keeping.”

Mrs. Wadham's face relaxed; but she could not
accept the political geography. “I guess you won't
find any Czar of Bohemia. Bohemia's a part of the
empire of Austria. I've been through it. Come to
Russia, and you're more like it. But the next thing
is,” she continued, “what you're going to do about
it?”

“That's it,” said her visitor, “what are you going to
do about it? If a little knowledge of foreign languages
— but I hear the boy don't know any thing
but English.”

Mrs. Wadham did not overwhelm this suggestion
about English with irony or with scornful eloquence;
but she met it with much shrewdness:

“He don't know! What's he going to know except
just what's put into his mouth? But ain't he goin' to
have memories of his native land? Squeeze a leaf, and
ain't there an aroma?” She illustrated this with a
geranium leaf, successfully.

Mr. Greenwood, in a low voice, said that, “if it was a
memory of the native land brought that out, he wondered
what sort of country one particular kind of
cabbage remembered so strongly, that Mr. Parmenter
was raising, on his low grounds?”

She continued, without check: “Yes! can't you
appeal to 'em? Haven't we known of foreigners that
were as hard as you please; but give 'em a little toone
upon your dulcinets and your castanets” (here Mrs.
Wadham illustrated, with her fingers, first the twanging
of melodious chords, as of a stringed instrument, and,
next, the airy touch which draws the responsibe soul
from ivory keys), “and then you've got 'em.” (Mr.
Greenwood applied his handkerchief to his eyes, but
only passingly, and said “that was human nature.”)

Miss Minette was a musical person, and sat a little
impatient under this figurative representation. “I
don't know about those musical instruments,” she said,
“but, Ma, that's the way it is in story-books.”

“No, it isn't story-books! That great, fat Gretkins
Warter wasn't a story-book, that fell down flat, like a
shot, and kicked out her two great feet, as stiff as that
poker! Now,” said she, “that's just what I should try,
— that's just what I should try.”

Now Mrs. Wadham had said enough to warrant
her sitting still, and looking him broadly and steadily in
the face again, as having presented him with a very
complete “case.”

“I think that's just what I should like to see tried,”
said Mr. Greenwood. “It's like a chemical process, I
suppose,” he continued, in a pleasant voice. “You” —

“That's just it, exactly,” she said, accepting the simile
as soon as she knew that a simile was coming, and before
she heard it. So Mr. Greenwood did not follow
out the figure.

“Or like a mechanical appliance.”

“Yes, yes, — `a mechanical appliance.' It's like a good
many things. Now what we want,” she said, getting

the lead again, as became her, “is a little — what shall
we say? — Russian? Yes! a little Russian.”

“I thought,” said Mr. Greenwood, diffidently, “that
we'd got a little Russian, and wanted to get into our
little Russian.”

Miss Minette smiled. Mrs. Wadham did not recognize
this harmless attempt as a joke, but took it seriously,
and wasted no time over it.

“Well, we want the Russian language,” she said.

“If you say so,” he said, accommodatingly, “let's
have the Russian language. What's the evidence that
he's Russian? That's settled, is it? Certainly, his
hair curls, — that's like Peter the Great; and he's thin-skinned.
The air in those northern countries is so sharp
it takes off all the outside, — `the cuticle,' as the doctors
call it.”

“Let's see the book! Where's Peter the Great!”
cried the mother; and as Miss Minette turned to a
bookcase, Mr. Greenwood added one little particular,
to prevent a possible disappointment: —

“Unless they've got him there in his wig, which was
straight.”

Miss Minette smiled. Presently, having found the
book, and opened it, she proclaimed the result: “You're
right: his hair is curly.”

“What else is the child?” Mrs. Wadham asked,
with a conclusive air, and repeated, “What else is
he? He ain't an American, — that we know; nor he
ain't an Englishman, nor a Frenchman. Then what is
he? Why, here's a story that says `he's Russian.'
Now where does that come from? Where there's a
grain of fire, I say, there's a spark. I mean where
there's a spark, there's fire.”

“Both propositions are true and logical,” he answered.
“I suppose we may say that where rumor
asserts a thing persistently, when there's no reason for
it, there must be something in it.”

Mrs. Wadham was too close and clear a reasoner, as
we have seen, to accept any poor work, for her argument.
“How do you mean `there's no reason for it'?”
she asked, looking at him with a most searching and
unflinching stare.

“Why, in this case,” answered the acquiescing visitor,
“there's no interest to be served by representing him as
Russian. Nobody's going to gain any thing by it.”

“Now, I see, you talk reason,” she said. “What we
want is to try the boy with something that'll remind
him of his far-off home, you know; and my opinion is
if we try him with a pretty little scene from his native
land, and a little song, or a few words of his mother-tongue,
we shall do it. Who is there that can talk
Russian? There must be Russian ships coming into
Boston and Noo York every day.”

“Not so often as that,” said Mr. Greenwood, — “not
so often as that.”

“Well, they must have Russian Bibles; and if I had
a Russian Bible, and a dictionary, I'd get enough, in
half an hour, to find him out, I'll be bound. He's only
a boy.”

“You wouldn't undertake to make a `Ranz des
Vaches' out of a Russian Bible and a dictionary, in
half an hour, Mother!” said Miss Minette, laughing.

“I should like to see her have a fair chance,” said
Mr. Greenwood, gravely. “She wants to prove to this
little chap at St. Bart's, and the rest of us, that he's a
Russian, of noble birth; and if she could take him

unawares, and sing him a little simple, artless song, in
what she calls his mother-tongue, who knows what the
effect would be?”

But this was going beyond Mrs. Wadham's limit, and
she applied a check.

“I haven't said any thing about singing a song, randes-
vaches or ren-dez-vous. No, I beg you not to
mistake me. I know very well what I'm saying. I
say, if somebody, — not I, — not I, — if somebody would
only sing a few words to him, — a song of infancy, — a
song of home, — he'd touch the hidden springs, and
there'd be a gush” (there was a little confusion in the
imagery, here, but she evidently knew what she was
saying) “and a rush, and there it would be, — you'd
have him.”

Mr. Greenwood, before the weight and force of these
words, sat very meekly, and at the end he said, “Of
course you wouldn't sing it. Miss Minette would have
to do that for us” — (“I beg you'll excuse me from
singing Russian,” said Miss Minette) “of your mother's
composing,” continued he, turning to her, with much
earnestness and a wave of the hand, all which precipitated
the young lady into a fit of laughter, in which he
left her and turned, gravely and silently, to listen to the
mother.

“It needn't be poetry,” she said. “If I had to get it
out of the Bible, I should, most likely, choose an appropriate
text: `We confess we're strangers and pilgrims;
we want a better country, for this isn't our home.'
That would do! that would do! something like
that.”

“Why not?” asked Mr. Greenwood, “if you could
only get the Russian Bible and the dictionary?”

“They'd have 'em at the Depository, to give to the
sailors as they come in.”

“Well,” said Mr. Greenwood, modestly, “if we could
be sure, now, that every man in New York or Boston,
with a Bible under one arm and a dictionary under the
other, was a Russian sailor — don't the Swedes, and the
Danes, and the Portuguese, go the same way?”

Mrs. Wadham was not to be led off by any senseless
suggestions of this sort.

“What are we going to go round the streets after
sailors for? What I say is, `Go to the Depository;'
there you'll get your Russian Bibles, as many's you
want.”

“The trouble is,” said Mr. Greenwood, “Russian ships
don't come to this country, and so they wouldn't keep
any Bibles for 'em, — that is, I don't think they would.”

But Mrs. Wadham knew something about trade: —

“Why don't they come to this country? Who brings
all the Russia duck and” —

“Why, I suppose,” said Mr. Greenwood modestly, like
a man ready to learn, “Russia ducks, like other ducks,
are migratory” —

“Well, well!” said the lady, “this doesn't bring us
any nigher to our point. If you can't try one thing, try
another, I say,” and she looked straight forward into the
boundless realms of thought, abstractedly, to see what
that other thing should be.

“You want to touch his feelings,” said Mr. Greenwood,
now proving himself more serviceable and purpose-like.
“How would it do to show him some
affecting scene from his native land, — the murder of
Peter the Great, or something like that?”

“Was Peter the Great murdered?” asked the lady,

turning from her meditation, and speaking like one who
was not in the habit of taking things upon trust.

“A great many Peters were, at any rate. Peter
something was; and, I suppose, you'd be safe in saying
any Peter, for you know what the Russian way is.
They take the rightful heir, and put a crown on his head
(a splendid crown, — heavy gold, and all covered over
with jewels), and then he sits on a great throne, —
you've seen representations of them. Well, then any
man in the Empire has one shot at the crown, — I don't
remember what the distance is, — and, if he knocks it off,
then the emperor abdicates, and the man has the first
jewel he can pick up. `Succession by Shot,' I believe
it's called.”

“Suppose the emperor gets hit?” asked the lady, not
committing herself by look to a favorable or unfavorable
estimate of this information.

“If he dies, then that's called `Succession by natural
Order' (or `by the Order of Nature,' I forget which);
if he doesn't die, they try it over again.”

Miss Minette was not as gravely affected by the
tragical character of the tenure of the Russian throne
as this story was calculated to make her. Indeed, she
laughed at it, and said it was a pretty state of things in
the Empire of all the Russias if that was the way with
them.

“This may be a little Czar sent here to escape that
ordeal,” said Mr. Greenwood, diffidently.

“Well, well,” said the mother, “that's neither here
nor there. You might have something out of history
that everybody would know. There was that burning
of Moscow, — they used to have a panorama of it going
round. That would do, — that would do. We could
easily get that up.”

“How was it got up? I haven't been in the world
as long as that?” said her visitor.

“Why,” said Mrs. Wadham, “here were great flames
darting out, and smoke rollin' off, and a drumming and
a thundering, and the Kremlin Tower comin' down” —

“The Crum'lin' Tower you mean, perhaps, if it was
coming down in that style?”

“No, I don't: I mean the Kremlin Tower. I know
very well what I mean; and then the great bell come
down, — ding-dong! ding-dong! — and then the curtain
fell.”

“And speaking of bells reminds me of the fair,” said
Mr. Greenwood, with a great bow to Miss Minette.
“We can have the Fair of Nijni-Novgorod, on the Ice;
and we're pretty sure of killing one bird with two
stones, — if there's no member of the `Prevention of
Cruelty' about.”

“`Two birds with one stone' it is, I believe,” said
Mrs. Wadham, gravely; for it was evident that he had
got the proverb wrong.

“You're right, it is so,” he answered, accepting the
correction handsomely; “but why can't we have some
tableaux, whether we catch this little chap or not? It
would be fun for the Bartlemas boys, if you can get
them, and fun for everybody.”

“Why shouldn't we?” asked Miss Minette, eagerly.
“It would be just splendid, wouldn't it?”

“Now you're on the track of something,” said the
elder lady, who had set them upon this track. “Now
there's some prospect. Well, Mr. Greenwood, say the
word. When shall it be? You shall be stage-manager
and costumer.”

“Are we going to have `The Russian Succession,'

too? or only `The Burning of Moscow'?” he asked.
“We can have the one, or the two, or the three. The
Succession would be very effective, especially as we
should have to put Brade through it.”

“Oh, let's have it by all means!” said Miss Minette,
to whom the prospect seemed very suggestive of fun.

“We must have your mother close by to catch him,
if we knock him over, and to take his head in her
bosom,” said Mr. Greenwood, whose plastic eye set up
for him already the future mimic scene.

“No, you don't, I thank you,” answered that sensible
lady. “I ain't a-goin' to stand up and be shot at, — not
for nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars a second.
He'll have to have somebody else for his mother, if
that's what she's got to do,— I can't mother him.”

“We can take out the balls, for any but the good
shots,” said Mr. Greenwood.

“No, you won't catch me, good shots or bad shots, if
it's only pop-guns.”

“Well, somehow, we must get his head into your
hands, and have that little song of home.”

“That you won't get from me, I guess,” said the
matron, again smiling, but with decision.

“And where are you going to get your Russian
words?” asked Miss Minette, conclusively.

“I suppose we could get those on a pinch,” said the
future stage-manager.

“Then you begin to think there are ships coming in,”
said the matron.

“No, no; but men who know Russian. I didn't mean
to mention it though.”

“You don't know Russian?” asked Miss Minette,
apparently in doubt whether he was in jest or earnest.

“You say so;” said Mr. Greenwood, with a tone of
regret: “I wish I could say as much. I had a painful
experience in that way.” (Both ladies looked at him
with great interest and curiosity.) “I shouldn't like it
mentioned, for the aspirations of an ambitious young
man were crushed. I was appointed Secretary of Legation
to Pekin, — St. Petersburgh, I mean; but Mr.
Everett died, and the embassy didn't go. Nobody
knows that here, and you won't tell it, will you? Now,
I am just working very hard, in a respectable and
remunerative way; but that was a sad damper.
N'importe!” he added, with a manly spirit. “Good
morning,” and bowed himself out of the room, —
followed hospitably through the entry by the younger
lady, — and left the house.