University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE EVENING.

Woodbury had prudently left the preparations for the refreshment
of his numerous guests in the hands of Mrs. Babb,
who, aided by the sable Melinda, had produced an immense
supply of her most admired pastry. By borrowing freezers
from the confectioner in Ptolemy, and employing Patrick to do
the heavy churning, she had also succeeded in furnishing very
tolerable ices. The entertainment was considered to be—and,
for country means, really was—sumptuous. Nevertheless, the
housekeeper was profuse in her apologies, receiving the abundant
praises of her guests with outward grimness and secret
satisfaction.

“Try these crullers,” she would say: “p'r'aps you'll find
'em better 'n the jumbles, though I'm afeard they a'n't hardly
done enough. But you'll have to put up with sich as there
is.”

“Oh, Mrs. Babb!” exclaimed Mrs. Hamilton Bue, “don't
say that! Nobody bakes as nice as you do. I wish you'd
give me the receipt for the jumbles.”

“You're welcome to it, if you like 'em, I'm sure. But it
depends on the seasonin', and I don't never know if they're
goin' to come out right.”

“Mrs. Babb,” said Woodbury, coming up at this moment,
“will you please get a bottle of Sherry. The gentlemen, I see,
have nothing but lemonade.”

“I told Bute to git some for them as likes it.”

“A-hm!” Mrs. Bue ejaculated, as the housekeeper departed
to look after the wine; “I think, Mr. Woodbury, they
don't take any thing more.”

“Let me give them a chance, Mrs. Bue. Ah, here comes
Bute, with the glasses. Shall I have the pleasure?” offering
her one of the two which he had taken.

“Oh, dear me, no—not for any thing!” she exclaimed, looking
a little frightened.

“Mr. Bue,” said Woodbury, turning around to that gentleman,
“as Mrs. Bue refuses to take a glass of wine with me,
you must be her substitute.”

“Thank you, I'd—I'd rather not, this evening,” said Mr.
Bue, growing red in the face.

There was an embarrassing pause. Woodbury, looking
around, perceived that Bute had already offered his tray to the
other gentlemen, and that none of the glasses upon it had been
taken. He was about to replace his own without drinking,
when the Hon. Zeno Harder said: “Allow me the pleasure,
Sir!” and helped himself. At the same moment the Rev. Mr.
Waldo, in obedience to a glance from his wife, followed his
example.

“I have not tasted wine for some years,” said the latter,
“but I have no objection to its rational use. I have always
considered it sanctioned,” he added, turning to Mr. Styles,
“by the Miracle of Cana.”

Mr. Styles slightly nodded, but said nothing.

“Your good health, Sir!” said the Hon. Zeno, as he emptied
his glass.

“Health?” somebody echoed, in a loud, contemptuous
whisper.

Woodbury bowed and drank. As he was replacing his
glass, Mr. Grindle, who had been waiting for the consummation
of the iniquity, suddenly stepped forward. Mr. Grindle
was a thin, brown individual, with a long, twisted nose, and a
voice which acquired additional shrillness from the fact of its
appearing to proceed entirely from the said nose. He had occasionally
lectured in Ptolemy, and was known,—by sight, at
least,—to all the company. Woodbury, however, was quite
ignorant of the man and every thing concerning him.

“I am surprised,” exclaimed Mr. Grindle, with his eyes
fixed on vacancy, “that a man who has any regard for his
reputation will set such a pernicious example.”

“To what do you refer?” asked Woodbury, uncertain
whether it was he who was addressed.

“To that!” replied the warning prophet, pointing to the
empty wine-glass—“the source of nine-tenths of all the sin
and suffering in the world!”

“I think you would have some difficulty in finding Sherry
enough to produce such a result,” Woodbury answered,
beginning to understand the man.

“Sherry, or Champagne, or Heidsick!” retorted Mr. Grindle,
raising his voice: “it's all the same—all different forms
of Rum, and different degrees of intemperance!”

Woodbury's brown eyes flashed a little, but he answered
coolly and sternly: “As you say, Sir, there are various forms
of intemperance, and I have too much respect for my guests
to allow that any of them should be exhibited here. Mrs.
Waldo,” he continued, turning his back on the lecturer, and
suddenly changing his tone, “did you not propose that we
should have some music?”

“I have both persuaded and commanded,” she replied, “but
singers, I have found, are like a flock of sheep. They huddle
together and hesitate, until some one takes the lead, and then
they all follow, even if it's over your head. You must be
bell-wether, after all.”

“Any thing for harmony,” he answered, gayly. “Ah! I
have it—a good old song, with which none of our friends can
find fault.”

And he sang, in his mellow voice, with an amused air, which
Mrs. Waldo understood and heartily enjoyed: “Drink to me
only with thine eyes.”

Mr. Grindle, however, turned to Seth Wattles and said,
sneeringly: “It's easy enough to shirk an argument you can't
answer.” A fortnight afterwards he exploited the incident in
a lecture which he gave before the Sons of Temperance, at

Ptolemy. Commencing with the cheap groggeries, he gradually
rose in his attacks until he reached the men of wealth and
education. “There are some of these in our neighborhood,”
he said: “it is not necessary for me to mention names—men
whom perhaps we might excuse for learning the habit of rum-drinking
on foreign shores, where our blessed reform has not
yet penetrated, if they did not bring it here with them, to corrupt
and destroy our own citizens. Woe unto those men, say I!
Better that an ocean of fire had rolled between those distant
shores of delusion and debauchery and this redeemed land, so
that they could not have returned! Better that they had perished
under the maddening influence of the bowl that stingeth
like an adder, before coming here to add fresh hecatombs to the
Jaws of the Monster!” Of course, everybody in Ptolemy
knew who was meant, and sympathizing friends soon carried
the report to Lakeside.

The unpleasant episode was soon forgotten, or, from a natural
sense of propriety, no longer commented upon. Even the
strongest advocates of Temperance present felt mortified by
Mr. Grindle's vulgarity. Hannah Thurston, among others,
was greatly pained, yet, for the first time, admired Woodbury's
coolness and self-possession, in the relief which it gave
her. She wished for an opportunity to show him, by her manner,
a respect which might in some degree counterbalance the
recent rudeness, and such an opportunity soon occurred.

She was standing before the picture of Francesca da Rimini,
lost in the contemplation of the wonderful grace and pathos
of the floating figures, when Woodbury, approaching her, said:

“I am glad that you admire it, Miss Thurston. The picture
is a great favorite with me.”

“The subject is from Dante, is it not?” she asked; “that
figure is he, I think.”

Woodbury was agreeably surprised at her perception, especially
as she did not say “Dant,” which he might possibly have
expected. He explained the engraving, and found that she
recollected the story, having read Cary's translation.

“Since you are so fond of pictures, Miss Thurston,” said
he, “let me show you another favorite of mine. Here, in the
library.”

Taking a large portfolio from its rack, he opened it on the
table, under a swinging lamp. There were views of Indian
scenery—strange temples, rising amid plumy tufts of palm;
elephants and tigers grappling in jungles of gigantic grass;
pillared banians, with gray-bearded fakirs sitting in the
shade, and long ghauts descending to the Ganges. The glimpses
she caught, as he turned the leaves, took away her breath
with sudden delight.

At last he found the plate he was seeking, and laid it before
her. It was a tropical brake, a tangle of mimosa-trees,
with their feathery fronds and balls of golden down, among
which grew passion-flowers and other strange, luxuriant vines.
In the midst of the cool, odorous darkness, stood a young Indian
girl of wonderful beauty, with languishing, almond-shaped
eyes, and some gorgeous unknown blossom drooping from
her night-black hair. Her only garment, of plaited grass or
rushes, was bound across the hips, leaving the lovely form bare
in its unconscious purity. One hand, listlessly hanging among
the mimosa leaves, which gradually folded up and bent away
where she touched them, seemed to seek the head of a doe,
thrust out from the foliage to meet it. At the bottom of the
picture a fawn forced its way through the tangled greenery.
The girl, in her dusky beauty, seemed a dryad of the sumptuous
forest—the child of summer, and perfume, and rank,
magnificent bloom.

“Oh, how beautiful!” exclaimed Hannah Thurston, at once
impressed by the sentiment of the picture: “It is like the scent
of the tube rose.”

“Ah, you comprehend it!” exclaimed Woodbury, surprised
and pleased: “do you know the subject?”

“Not at all, but it scarcely needs an explanation.”

“Have you ever heard of Kalidasa, the Hindoo poet?”

“I have not, I am sorry to say,” she answered; “I have

sometimes found references to the old Sanscrit literature in
modern authors, but that is all I know about it.”

“My own knowledge has been derived entirely from translations,”
said he, “and I confess that this picture was the cause
of my acquaintance with Kalidasa. I never had patience to
read their interminable epics. Shall I tell you the story of
Sakontala, this lovely creature?”

“Certainly, if you will be so kind: it must be beautiful.”

Woodbury then gave her a brief outline of the drama, to
which she listened with the greatest eagerness and delight.
At the close, he said:

“I am sorry I have not a copy of the translation to offer
you. But, if you would like to read another work by the
same poet, I think I have the `Megha-Duta,' or `Cloud-Messenger,'
somewhere in my library. It is quite as beautiful a
poem, though not in the dramatic form. There are many characteristic
allusions to Indian life, but none, I think, that you
could not understand.”

“Thank you, Mr. Woodbury. It is not often that I am
able to make the acquaintance of a new author, and the pleasure
is all the greater. I know very little of literature outside
of the English language, and this seems like the discovery of
a new world in the Past. India is so far-off and unreal.”

“Not to me,” he answered, with a smile. “We are creatures
of habit to a greater extent than the most of us guess.
If you could now be transplanted to India, in less than five
years you would begin to imagine that you were born under
the lotus-leaf, and that this life in Ptolemy had occurred only
in the dreams of a tropical noonday.”

“Oh, no, no!” said she, with earnestness. “We cannot so
forget the duties imposed upon us—we cannot lose sight of
our share in the great work intrusted to our hands. Right,
and Justice, and Conscience, are everywhere the same!”

“Certainly, as absolute principles. But our individual duties
vary with every change in our lives, and our individual action
is affected, in spite of ourselves, by the influences of the external

world. Are you not—to take the simplest evidence of this
fact—cheerful and hopeful on some days, desponding and
irresolute on others, without conscious reason? And can you
not imagine moods of Nature which would permanently color
your own?”

Hannah Thurston felt that there was a germ of harsh, material
truth in his words, beside which her aspirations lost
somewhat of their glow. Again she was conscious of a painful,
unwelcome sense of repulsion. “Is there no faith?” she
asked herself; “are there no lofty human impulses, under this
ripe intelligence?” The soft, liquid lustre faded out of her
eyes, and the eager, animated expression of her face passed
away like the sunshine from a cloud, leaving it cold and gray.

Woodbury, seeing Miss Eliza Clancy, in company with
other ladies, entering the library, tied up the portfolio and
replaced it in its rack. Mrs. Waldo, pressing forward at the
same time, noticed upon the table a Chinese joss-stick, in its
lackered boat. She was not a woman to disguise or restrain
an ordinary curiosity.

“What in the world is this?” she asked, taking the boat in
her hands. The other ladies clustered around, inspecting it
from all sides, but unable to guess its use.

“Now,” said Woodbury, laughing, “I have half a mind to
torment you a little. You have all read the Arabian Nights?
Well, this is an instrument of enchantment.”

“Enchantment! Do the Indian jugglers use it?” asked
Mrs. Waldo.

“I use it,” said he. “This rod, as it appears to be, is made
of a mysterious compound. It has been burned at one end,
you see. When lighted, it is employed to communicate fire
to another magical substance, through which the Past is
recalled and the Future made clear.”

Miss Clancy and the other spinsters opened their eyes wide,
in wonderment. “Provoking! Tell us now!” cried Mrs.
Waldo.

“It is just as I say,” he answered. “See, when I light the

end—thus—it burns with a very slow fire. This single piece
would burn for nearly a whole day.”

“But what is the other magical substance?” she asked.

“Here is a specimen,” said he, taking the lid from a circular
box of carved bamboo, and disclosing to their view some cigars.

The spinsters uttered a simultaneous exclamation. “Dreadful!”
cried Mrs. Waldo, in affected horror. “Hannah, can
you imagine such depravity?”

“I confess, it seems to me an unnatural taste,” Hannah
Thurston gravely answered; “but I presume Mr. Woodbury
has some defence ready.”

“Only this,” said he, with an air between jest and earnest,
“that the habit is very agreeable, and, since it produces a
placid, equable tone of mind, highly favorable to reflection,
might almost be included in the list of moral agencies.”

“Would it not be more satisfactory,” she asked, “if you
could summon up the same condition of mind, from an earnest
desire to attain the Truth, without the help of narcotic drugs?”

“Perhaps so,” he replied; “but we are all weak vessels, as
you know, Mrs. Waldo. I have never yet encountered such a
thing as perfect harmony in the relations between body and
mind. I doubt, even, if such harmony is possible, except at
transient intervals. For my part, my temper is so violent and
uncontrollable that the natural sedative qualities of my mind
are insufficient.”

Mrs. Waldo laughed heartily at this assertion, and the
serious tone in which it was uttered. Hannah Thurston, to
whom every fancied violation of the laws of nature was more
or less an enormity, scarcely knew whether to be shocked or
amused. She had determined to carefully guard herself against
committing such an indiscretion as Mr. Grindle, but it was
hard to be silent, when Duty demanded that she should bear
a stern testimony against evil habits.

“You should be charitable, ladies,” Woodbury continued,
“towards some of our masculine habits, seeing that we do not
interfere with yours.”

“Bless me! what habits have we, I should like to know!”
exclaimed Mrs. Waldo.

“A multitude: I don't know the half of them. Crochetwork,
and embroidery, and patterns, for instance. Tea is
milder than tobacco, I grant, but your systems are more sensitive.
Then, there are powders and perfumes; eau de Cologne,
lavender, verbena, heliotrope, and what not—against all of
which I have nothing to say, because their odors are nearly
equal to that of a fine Havana cigar.”

Miss Eliza Clancy and Miss Ruhaney Goodwin exchanged
glances of horror. They were both too much embarrassed to
reply.

“You understand our weaknesses,” said Hannah Thurston,
with a smile in which there was some bitterness.

“I do not call them weaknesses,” he answered. “I should
be glad if this feminine love of color and odor were more common
among men. But there are curious differences of taste,
in this respect. I have rarely experienced a more exquisite
delight than in riding through the rose-fields of Ghazeepore, at
the season for making attar: yet some persons cannot endure
the smell of a rose. Musk, which is a favorite perfume with
many, is to me disagreeable. There is, however, a physical
explanation for this habit of mine, which, perhaps, you do not
know.”

“No,” said she, still gravely, “I know nothing but that it
seems to me unnecessary, and—if you will pardon me the
word—pernicious.”

“Certainly. It is so, in many cases. But some constitutions
possess an overplus of active nervous life, which suggests the
use of a slight artificial sedative. The peculiar fascination of
smoking is not in the taste of the weed, but the sight of the
smoke. It is the ear of corn which we hold out to entice into
harness the skittish thoughts that are running loose. In the
Orient, men accomplish the same result by a rosary, the beads
of which they run through their fingers.”

“Yes!” interrupted Mrs. Waldo: “My brother George,

who was always at the head of his class, had a habit of twisting
a lock of his hair while he was getting his lessons. It
stuck out from the side of his head, like a horn. When
mother had his hair cut, he went down to the foot, and he
never got fairly up to head till the horn grew out again.”

“A case in point,” said Woodbury. “Now, you, ladies,
have an exactly similar habit. Sewing, I have heard, is oftentimes
this soothing agent, but knitting is the great feminine
narcotic. In fact, women are more dependent on these slight
helps to thought—these accompaniments to conversation—
than men. There are few who can sit still and talk a whole
evening, without having their hands employed. Can you not
see some connecting link between our habits?”

The spinsters were silent. The speaker had, in fact, rather
gone beyond their depth, with the exception of Mrs. Waldo,
whose sympathy with him was so hearty and genial that she
would have unhesitatingly accepted whatever sentiments he
might have chosen to declare. Hannah Thurston was not a
little perplexed. She scarcely knew whether he was entirely
sincere, yet his views were so novel and unexpected that she
did not feel prepared to answer them. Before this man's appearance
in Ptolemy, her course had been chosen. She had
taken up, weighed, and decided for herself the questions of
life: a period of unpleasant doubt and hesitation had been
solved by the acceptance of (to her) great and important theories
of reform. Was a new and more difficult field of doubt to
be opened now?—more difficult, because the distinctions of the
sexes, which had been almost bridged over in her intercourse
with reformers of kindred views, were suddenly separated by
a new gulf, wider than the old.

Woodbury, noticing something of this perplexity in her countenance,
continued in a lighter tone: “At least, Miss Thurston,
I think you will agree with me that a physical habit,
if you prefer to call it so, is not very important in comparison
with those vices of character which are equally common and
not so easy to eradicate. Is not the use of a `narcotic drug'

less objectionable than the systematic habit of avarice, or envy,
or hypocrisy?”

“Yes, indeed!” said Mrs. Waldo, recollecting his generous
donation to the Cimmerians, “and I, for one, will not prohibit
the use of your magical ingredients.”

“I cannot judge for you, Mr. Woodbury,” said Hannah
Thurston, feeling that some response was expected; “but have
you no duty towards those who may be encouraged in the
same habit, to their certain injury, by your example?”

“There, Miss Thurston, you touch a question rather too
vague to enter practically into one's life. After accepting, in
its fullest sense, the Christian obligation of duty towards our
fellow-men, there must be a certain latitude allowed for individual
tastes and likings. Else we should all be slaves to each
other's idiosyncrasies, and one perverted or abnormal trait
might suppress the healthy intellectual needs of an entire community.
Must we cease to talk, for example, because there is
scarcely a wholesome truth which, offered in a certain way,
might not operate as poison to some peculiarly constituted
mind? Would you cease to assert an earnest conviction from
the knowledge that there were persons unfitted to receive
it?”

“I do not think the analogy is quite correct,” she answered,
after a moment's pause, “because you cannot escape the recognition
of a truth, when it has once found access to your
mind. A habit, which you can take up or leave off at will, is
a very different thing.”

“Perhaps, then,” said Woodbury, who perceived by the
rising shade on Mrs. Waldo's smooth brow that it was time to
end the discussion, “I had best plead guilty, at once, to being
something of an Epicurean in my philosophy. I am still too
much of an Oriental to be indifferent to slight material comforts.”

“In consideration of your hospitality,” interposed Mrs.
Waldo, brightening up, “the Sewing Union will not judge
you very severely. Is it not so, Miss Clancy?”

“Well—really—oh no, we are under obligations to Mr.
Woodbury;” said the spinster, thus unexpectedly appealed to,
and scarcely knowing how to reply.

“Our community have reason to congratulate themselves,
Sir,” here broke in the Hon. Zeno Harder, who had entered
the library in time to hear the last words.

Woodbury bowed dryly and turned away.

Soon afterwards, the sound of sleigh-bells in front of the
house announced the first departures. The company became
thinner by slow degrees, however, for the young gentlemen
and ladies had found the large parlor of Lakeside full of convenient
nooks, which facilitated their habit of breaking into
little groups, and were having such agreeable conversation that
they would probably have remained until the small hours, but
for the admonitions of the older folks. Among the earliest to
leave were the Merryfields, taking with them Hannah Thurston
and Miss Dilworth, greatly to Bute's regret. The latter,
unable to detect any signs of peculiar intimacy between Seth
Wattles and the little seamstress, became so undisguised in his
fondness for her society as to attract, at last, Mrs. Babb's attention.
The grim housekeeper had a vulture's beak for
scenting prey of this kind. While she assisted Mrs. Styles to
find her “Things,” in the bedroom up-stairs, she steadfastly
kept one eye on the snowy front yard, down which the Merryfield
party were moving. Bute, as she anticipated, was hovering
around the last and smallest of the hooded and cloaked
females. He put out his arm two or three times, as if to
steady her steps. They had nearly reached the cutter, where
Patrick was holding the impatient horses, when she saw
another male figure hurry down the walk. There was a sudden
tangle among the dim forms, and one of them, she noticed,
plunged full length into a bank of snow.

Mrs. Babb was so agitated by this tableau, that she suddenly
threw up her hands, exclaiming: “Well, if that don't
beat all!”

Mrs. Styles, carefully muffled for the journey home, had just

turned to say good-night to the housekeeper, and stood petrified,
unable to guess whether the exclamation was one of admiration
or reproach. She slightly started back before the
energy with which it was uttered.

“Well, to be sure, how I do forgit things!” said Mrs. Babb,
coming to her senses. “But you know, Ma'am, when you're
not used to havin' company for a while, y'r head gits bothered.
'Pears to me I haven't been so flustered for years. You're
sure, Ma'am, you're right warm. I hope you won't take no
cold, goin' home.”

The scene that transpired in front of the house was sufficiently
amusing. Bute Wilson, as deputy-host, escorted Miss
Dilworth to the cutter, and was delighted that the slippery
path gave him at least one opportunity to catch her around the
waist. Hearing rapid footsteps behind him, he recognized
Seth Wattles hard upon his track, and, as the ungainly tailor
approached, jostled him so dexterously that he was tumbled
headlong into a pile of newly-shovelled snow.

“Ah! Who is it? Is he hurt?” exclaimed Miss Dilworth.

A smothered sound, very much resembling “Damn!” came
from the fallen individual.

“Let me help you up,” said Bute; “you pitched ag'in me
like an ox. Why, Seth, is it you? You ha'n't tore your
trowsus, nor nothin', have you?”

Seth, overwhelmed before the very eyes of Hannah Thurston,
whom he was hastening to assist into the cutter, grumbled:
“No, I'm not hurt.” Meantime, Bute had said good-night
to the party, and the cutter dashed away.

“Well, it's one comfort that you can always mend your own
rips,” the latter remarked, consolingly.

Finally, the last team departed, and the sound of the bells
diminished into a faint, fairy sweetness, as if struck by the
frosty arrows of the starlight from the crystals of the snow.
Lakeside returned to more than its wonted silence and seclusion.
Woodbury closed the door, walked into his library,
lighted a cigar at the still burning piece of joss-stick, and

threw himself into a chair before the fire. Now and then
puffing a delicate, expanding ring of smoke from his lips, he
watched it gradually break and dissolve, while reviewing, in
his thoughts, the occurrences of the evening. They were not
wholly agreeable, yet the least so—Mr. Grindle's rude attack,—
was not to be dismissed from the mind like an ordinary piece
of vulgarity. It was a type, he thought, of the manners which
self-constituted teachers of morality must necessarily assume
in a community where intellect is characterized by activity
rather than development. Society, in its broader sense, is unknown
to these people,—was his reflection. In the absence of
cultivation, they are ruled by popular ideas: Reforms are
marshalled in, as reserve corps, behind the ranks of Religion,
and not even the white flag of a neutral is recognized in the
grand crusade. “Join us and establish your respectability,
or resist us and be cut down!” is the cry.

“Yet”—he mused further—“is it not something that, in a
remote place like this, Ideas have vitality and power? Admitting
that the channels in which they move are contracted,
and often lead in false directions, must they not rest on a basis
of honest, unselfish aspiration? The vices which spring from
intolerance and vulgar egotism are not to be lightly pardoned,
but, on the other hand, they do not corrupt and demoralize like
those of the body. One must respect the source, while resisting
the manifestation. How much in earnest that Quaker girl
seemed! It was quite a serious lecture she gave me, about
such a trifle as this” (puffing an immense blue ring into the
air). “But it was worth taking it, to see how she enjoyed
the Sakontala. She certainly possesses taste, and no doubt
thinks better than she talks. By the by, I quite forgot to
give her the translation of the Megha-Duta.”

Springing up, Woodbury found the volume, after some
search, and soon became absorbed, for the second time, in its
pages.

“Bute,” said Mrs. Babb, as she wiped the dishes, and carefully
put away the odds and ends of the refreshments; “'Pears

to me you was gallivantin' round that Carrline Dilwuth, more
than's proper.”

Bute, standing with legs spread out and back to the fire,
answered, as he turned around to face it, whereby, if he
blushed, the evidence was covered by the glow of the flame:
“Well, she's a gay little creetur, and 'taint no harm.”

“I dunno about that,” sharply rejoined the housekeeper.
“She's a cunnin', conceited chit, and 'll lead you by the nose.
You're just fool enough to be captivated by a piece o' waxwork
and curls. It makes me sick to look at 'em. Gals used
to comb their hair when I was young. I don't want no sich
a thing as she is, to dance at my buryin'.”

“Oh, Mother Forty, don't you go off about it!” said Bute,
deprecatingly. “I ain't married to her, nor likely to be.”

“Married! I guess not! Time enough for that when I'm
dead and gone. Me that brought you up, and to have somebody
put over my head, and spendin' all your earnins on fine
clothes, and then hankerin' after my money. But it's locked
up, safe and tight, I can tell you that.”

“I'm man-grown, I reckon,” said Bute, stung into resistance
by this attack, “and if I choose to git married, some day or
other, I don't see who can hinder me. It's what everybody
else does, and what you've done, yourself.”

Bute strode off to bed, and the housekeeper, sitting down
before the fire, indulged in the rare luxury of shedding several
tears.