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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Man of Honor, by George Cary Eggleston
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Man of Honor
+
+Author: George Cary Eggleston
+
+Release Date: September 30, 2011 [EBook #37563]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MAN OF HONOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               A MAN OF HONOR.
+
+                          BY GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON.
+
+
+    ILLUSTRATED
+    BY M. WOOLF
+
+    NEW YORK:
+    ORANGE JUDD COMPANY,
+    245 BROADWAY.
+
+    Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by the
+    ORANGE JUDD COMPANY,
+    In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+
+
+
+    TO MARION, MY WIFE.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "I'VE GOT YOU NOW."]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+I have long been curious to know whether or not I could write a pretty
+good story, and now that the publishers are about to send the usual
+press copies of this book to the critics I am in a fair way to have my
+curiosity on that point satisfied.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+       Chapter I.--Mr. Pagebrook gets up and Calls an Ancient
+                   Lawgiver                                            11
+
+      Chapter II.--Mr. Pagebrook is Invited to Breakfast               22
+
+     Chapter III.--Mr. Pagebrook Eats his Breakfast                    26
+
+      Chapter IV.--Mr. Pagebrook Learns something about the
+                   Customs of the Country                              35
+
+       Chapter V.--Mr. Pagebrook Makes Some Acquaintances              42
+
+      Chapter VI.--Mr. Pagebrook Makes a Good Impression               48
+
+     Chapter VII.--Mr. Pagebrook Learns Several Things                 54
+
+    Chapter VIII.--Miss Sudie Makes an Apt Quotation                   61
+
+      Chapter IX.--Mr. Pagebrook Meets an Acquaintance                 65
+
+       Chapter X.--Chiefly Concerning "Foggy."                         70
+
+      Chapter XI.--Mr. Pagebrook Rides                                 79
+
+     Chapter XII.--Mr. Pagebrook Dines with his Cousin Sarah Ann       84
+
+    Chapter XIII.--Concerning the Rivulets of Blue Blood               95
+
+     Chapter XIV.--Mr. Pagebrook Manages to be in at the Death        102
+
+      Chapter XV.--Some very Unreasonable Conduct                     109
+
+     Chapter XVI.--What Occurred Next Morning                         118
+
+    Chapter XVII.--In which Mr. Pagebrook Bids his Friends Good-by    123
+
+   Chapter XVIII.--Mr. Pagebrook Goes to Work                         128
+
+     Chapter XIX.--A Short Chapter, not very interesting, perhaps,
+                   but of some Importance in the Story, as the
+                   Reader will probably discover after awhile         134
+
+      Chapter XX.--Cousin Sarah Ann Takes Robert's Part               138
+
+     Chapter XXI.--Miss Barksdale Expresses some Opinions             143
+
+    Chapter XXII.--Mr. Sharp Does His Duty                            150
+
+   Chapter XXIII.--Mr. Pagebrook Takes a Lesson in the Law            158
+
+    Chapter XXIV.--Mr. Pagebrook Cuts himself loose from the Past
+                   and Plans a Future                                 163
+
+     Chapter XXV.--In which Miss Sudie Acts very Unreasonably         166
+
+    Chapter XXVI.--In which Miss Sudie Adopts the Socratic Method.    175
+
+   Chapter XXVII.--Mr. Pagebrook Accepts an Invitation to Lunch
+                   and another Invitation                             181
+
+  Chapter XXVIII.--Major Pagebrook asserts himself                    188
+
+    Chapter XXIX.--Mr. Barksdale, the Younger, Goes upon a Journey    198
+
+     Chapter XXX.--The younger Mr. Barksdale Asks to be put upon
+                   His Oath                                           204
+
+    Chapter XXXI.--Mr. William Barksdale Explains                     208
+
+   Chapter XXXII.--Which Is also The Last                             216
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+
+
+"I've got You Now."                                      _Frontispiece_.
+
+Mr. Robert Pagebrook was "Blue."                                  13
+
+"I fall at once into a Chronic State of Washing up Things."       57
+
+"Foggy."                                                          73
+
+Cousin Sarah Ann                                                  87
+
+The Rivulets of Blue Blood                                        98
+
+Miss Sudie declares herself "so glad."                           116
+
+"Let him Serve it at once, then."                                156
+
+"Very well, then."                                               194
+
+"I'm as Proud and as Glad as a Boy with Red Morocco Tops
+to his Boots."                                                   218
+
+
+
+
+A MAN OF HONOR.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook gets up and calls an Ancient Lawgiver._
+
+
+Mr. Robert Pagebrook was "blue." There was no denying the fact, and for
+the first time in his life he admitted it as he lay abed one September
+morning with his hands locked over the top of his head, while his
+shapely and muscular body was stretched at lazy length under a scanty
+covering of sheet. He was snappish too, as his faithful serving man had
+discovered upon knocking half an hour ago for entrance, and receiving a
+rather pointed and wholly unreasonable injunction to "go about his
+business," his sole business lying just then within the precincts of Mr.
+Robert Pagebrook's room, to which he was thus denied admittance. The old
+servant had obeyed to the best of his ability, going not about his
+business but away from it, wondering meanwhile what had come over the
+young gentleman, whom he had never found moody before.
+
+[Illustration: "MR. ROBERT PAGEBROOK WAS 'BLUE.'"]
+
+It was clear that Mr. Robert Pagebrook's reflections were anything but
+pleasant as he lay there thinking, thinking, thinking--resolving not to
+think and straightway thinking again harder than ever. His disturbance
+was due to a combination of causes. His muddy boots were in full view
+for one thing, and he was painfully conscious that they were not likely
+to get themselves blacked now that he had driven old Moses away. This
+reminded him that he had showed temper when Moses's meek knock had
+disturbed him, and to show temper without proper cause he deemed a
+weakness. Weaknesses were his pet aversion. Weakness found little
+toleration with him, particularly when the weakness showed itself in his
+own person, out of which he had been all his life chastising such
+infirmities. His petulance with Moses, therefore, contributed to his
+annoyance, becoming an additional cause of that from which it came as an
+effect.
+
+Our young gentleman acknowledged, as I have already said, that he was
+out of spirits, and in the very act of acknowledging it he contemned
+himself because of it. His sturdy manhood rebelled against its own
+weakness, and mocked at it, which certainly was not a very good way to
+cure it. He denied that there was any good excuse for his depression,
+and scourged himself, mentally, for giving way to it, a process which
+naturally enough made him give way to it all the more. It depressed him
+to know that he was weak enough to be depressed. To my thinking he did
+himself very great injustice. He was, in fact, very unreasonable with
+himself, and deserved to suffer the consequences. I say this frankly,
+being the chronicler of this young man's doings and not his apologist by
+any means. He certainly had good reason to be gloomy, inasmuch as he had
+two rather troublesome things on his hands, namely, a young man without
+a situation and a disappointment in love, or fancy, which is often
+mistaken for love. A circumstance which made the matter worse was that
+the young man without a situation for whose future Mr. Robert Pagebrook
+had to provide was Mr. Robert Pagebrook himself. This alone would not
+have troubled him greatly if it had not been for his other trouble; for
+the great hulking fellow who lay there with his hands clasped over his
+head "cogitating," as he would have phrased it, had too much physical
+force, too much of good health and consequent animal spirits, to
+distrust either the future or his own ability to cope with whatever
+difficulties it might bring with it. To men with broad chests and great
+brawny legs and arms like his the future has a very promising way of
+presenting itself. Besides, our young man knew himself well furnished
+for a fight with the world. He knew very well how to take care of
+himself. He had done farm labor as a boy during the long summer
+vacations, a task set him by his Virginian father, who had carried a
+brilliant intellect in a frail body to a western state, where he had
+married and died, leaving his widow this one son, for whom in his own
+weakness he desired nothing so much as physical strength and bodily
+health. The boy had grown into a sturdy youth when the mother died,
+leaving him with little in the way of earthly possessions except
+well-knit limbs, a clear, strong, active mind, and an independent,
+self-reliant spirit. With these he had managed to work his way through
+college, turning his hand to anything which would help to provide him
+with the necessary means--keeping books, "coaching" other students,
+canvassing for various things, and doing work of other sorts, caring
+little whether it was dignified or undignified provided it was honest
+and promised the desired pecuniary return. After graduation he had
+accepted a tutorship in the college wherein he had studied--a position
+which he had resigned (about a year before the time at which we find him
+in a fit of the blues) to take upon himself the duties of "Professor of
+English Language and Literature, and Adjunct Professor of Mathematics,"
+in a little collegiate institute with big pretensions in one of the
+suburbs of Philadelphia. In short, he had been knocked about in the
+world until he had acquired considerable confidence in his ability to
+earn a living at almost anything he might undertake.
+
+Under the circumstances, therefore, it is not probable that this
+energetic and self-confident young gentleman would have suffered the
+loss of his professorship to annoy him very seriously if it had not been
+accompanied by the other trouble mentioned. Indeed, the two had come so
+closely together, and were so intimately connected in other ways, that
+Mr. Robert Pagebrook was inclined to wonder, as he lay there in bed,
+whether there might not exist between them somewhere the relation of
+cause and effect. Whether there really was any other than an accidental
+blending of the two events I am sure I do not know; and the reader is at
+liberty, after hearing the brief story of their happening, to take
+either side he prefers of the question raised in Mr. Rob's mind. For
+myself, I find it impossible to determine the point. But here is the
+story, as young Pagebrook turned it over and over in his mind in spite
+of himself.
+
+President Currier, of the collegiate institute, had a daughter, Miss
+Nellie, who wanted to study Latin more than anything else in the world.
+President Currier particularly disliked conjugations and parsings and
+everything else pertaining to the study of language; and so it happened
+that as Miss Nellie was quite a good-looking and agreeable damsel, our
+young friend Pagebrook volunteered to give her the coveted instruction
+in her favorite study in the shape of afternoon lessons. The tutor soon
+discovered that his pupil's earnest wish to learn Latin had been
+based--as such desires frequently are in the case of young women--upon
+an entire misapprehension of the nature and difficulty of the study. In
+fact, Miss Nellie's clearest idea upon the subject of Latin before
+beginning it was that "it must be so nice!" Her progress, therefore,
+after the first week or two, was certainly not remarkable for its
+rapidity; but the tutor persisted. After awhile the young lady said
+"Latin wasn't nice at all," a remark which she made haste to qualify by
+assuring her teacher that "it's nice to take lessons in it, though."
+Finally Miss Nellie ceased to make any pretense of learning the lessons,
+but somehow the afternoon _séances_ over the grammar were continued,
+though it must be confessed that the talk was not largely of verbs.
+
+By the time commencement day came the occasional presence of Miss Nellie
+had become a sort of necessity in the young professor's daily existence,
+and the desire to be with her led him to spend the summer at Cape May,
+whither her father annually took her for the season. Now Cape May is an
+expensive place, as watering places usually are, and so Mr. Robert
+Pagebrook's stay of a little over two months there made a serious
+reduction in his reserve fund, which was at best a very limited one.
+Before going to Cape May he had concluded that he was in love with Miss
+Nellie, and had informed her of the fact. She had expressed, by manner
+rather than by spoken word, a reasonable degree of pleasure in the
+knowledge of this fact; but when pressed for a reply to the young
+gentleman's impetuous questionings, she had prettily avoided committing
+herself beyond recall. She told him she might possibly come to love him
+a little after awhile, in a pretty little maidenly way, which satisfied
+him that she loved him a good deal already. She said she "didn't know"
+with a tone and manner which convinced him that she did know; and so the
+Cape May season passed off very pleasantly, with just enough of
+uncertainty about the position of affairs to keep up an interest in
+them.
+
+As the season drew near its close, however, Miss Nellie suddenly
+informed her lover one evening that her dear father had "plans" for her,
+and that of course they had both been amusing themselves merely; and she
+said this in so innocent and so sincere a way that for the moment her
+stunned admirer believed it as he retired to his room with an unusual
+ache in his heart. When the young man sat down alone, however, and began
+meditating upon the events of the past summer, he was unreasonable
+enough to accuse the innocent little maiden of very naughty trifling,
+and even to think her wanting in honesty and sincerity. As he sat there
+brooding over the matter, and half hoping that Miss Nellie was only
+trying him for the purpose of testing the depth of his affection, a
+servant brought him a note, which he opened and read. It was a very
+formal affair, as the reader will see upon running his eye over the
+following copy:
+
+     CAPE MAY, Sept. 10th, 18--.
+
+     _Dear Sir_:--It becomes my duty to inform you that the authorities
+     controlling the collegiate institute's affairs, having found it
+     necessary to retrench its expenses somewhat, have determined to
+     dispense altogether with the adjunct professorship of Mathematics,
+     and to distribute the duties appertaining to the chair of English
+     Language and Literature among the other members of the faculty. In
+     consequence of these changes we shall hereafter be deprived of your
+     valuable assistance in the collegiate institute. There is yet due
+     you three hundred dollars ($300) upon your salary for the late
+     collegiate year, and I greatly regret that the treasurer informs me
+     of a present lack of funds with which to discharge this obligation.
+     I personally promise you, however, that the amount shall be
+     remitted to whatever address you may give me, on or before the
+     fifteenth day of November next. I send this by a messenger just as
+     I am upon the point of leaving Cape May for a brief trip to other
+     parts of the country. I remain, sir, with the utmost respect,
+
+     Your obedient servant,
+
+     DAVID CURRIER,
+
+     President, etc.
+
+     _To Professor Robert Pagebrook._
+
+This letter had come to Mr. Robert very unexpectedly, and its immediate
+consequence had been to send him hastily back to his city lodgings. He
+had arrived late at night, and finding no matches in his room, which was
+situated in a business building where his neighbors were unknown to him,
+he had been compelled to go to bed in the dark, without the possibility
+of ascertaining whether or not there were any letters awaiting him on
+his table.
+
+Our young gentleman was not, ordinarily, of an irritable disposition,
+and trifling things rarely ever disturbed his equanimity, but he was
+forced to admit, as he lay there in bed, that he had been a very
+unreasonable young gentleman on several recent occasions, and naturally
+enough he began to catalogue his sins of this sort. Among other things
+he remembered that he had worked himself into a temper over the
+emptiness of the match-safe; and this reminded him that he had not even
+yet looked to see if there were any letters on the table at his elbow,
+much as he had the night previously bewailed the impossibility of doing
+so at once. Somehow this matter of his correspondence did not seem half
+so imperative in its demands upon his attention now that he could read
+his letters at once as it had seemed the night before when he could not
+read them at all. He stretched out his hand rather languidly, therefore,
+and taking up the half dozen letters which lay on the table, began to
+turn them over, examining the superscriptions with small show of
+interest. Breaking one open he muttered, "There's another forty dollars'
+worth of folly. I did not need that coat, but ordered it expressly for
+Cape May. The bill must be paid, of course, and here I am, out of work,
+with no prospects, and about five hundred dollars less money in bank
+than I ought to have. ----!"
+
+I am really afraid he closed that sentence with an ejaculation. I have
+set down an exclamation point to cover the possibility of such a thing.
+
+He went on with his letters. Presently he opened the last but one, and
+immediately proceeded to open his eyes rather wider than usual. Jumping
+out of bed he thrust his head out of the door and called,
+
+"Moses!"
+
+"_Moses!!_"
+
+"MOSES!!!"
+
+"MOSES!!!!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook is invited to Breakfast._
+
+
+After he had waked up whatever echoes there were in the building by his
+crescendo calling for Moses, besides spoiling the temper of the night
+editor who was just then in the midst of his first slumber in the room
+opposite, Mr. Rob remembered that the old colored janitor, who owned the
+biblical name, and who for a trifling consideration ministered in the
+capacity of servant to the personal comfort of the occupants of the
+rooms under his charge, was never known to answer a call. He was sure to
+be within hearing, but would maintain a profound silence until he had
+disposed of whatever matter he might happen to have in hand at the
+moment, after which he would come to the caller in the sedate and
+dignified way proper to a person of his importance. Remembering this,
+and hearing some ominous mutterings from the night editor's room, our
+young gentleman withdrew his head from the corridor, put on his
+dressing-gown and slippers, and sat down to await the leisurely coming
+of the serving man.
+
+Taking up the note again he reread it, although he knew perfectly well
+everything in it, and began speculating upon what it could possibly
+mean, knowing all the while that no amount of speculation could throw
+the slightest ray of light on the subject in the absence of further
+information. He read it aloud, just as you or I would have done, when
+there was nobody by to listen. It was as brief as a telegram, and merely
+said: "Will you please inform me at once whether we may count upon your
+acceptance of the position offered you?" It was signed with an
+unfamiliar name, to which was appended the abbreviated word "Pres't."
+
+"I shall certainly be very happy to inform the gentleman," thought the
+perplexed young man, "whether he may or may not (by the way he very
+improperly omits the alternative 'or not' after his 'whether'), whether
+he may or may not 'count upon' (I must look up that expression and see
+if there is good authority for its use), whether he may or may not count
+upon my acceptance of the position offered me, just as soon as I can
+inform myself upon the matter. As I have not at present the slightest
+idea of what the 'position' is, it is somewhat difficult for me to make
+up my mind concerning it. However, as I am without employment and
+uncomfortably short of money, there seems to be every probability that
+my unknown correspondent's proposition, whatever it is, will be
+favorably considered. Moses will come after awhile, I suppose, and he
+probably has the other letter caged as a 'vallable.' Let me see what we
+have here from William."
+
+With this our young gentleman opened his only remaining letter, which
+he had already discovered by a glance at the postmark was from a
+Virginian cousin. It was a mere note, in which his cousin wrote:
+
+"A little matter of business takes me to Philadelphia next week. Shall
+be at Girard Ho., Thrsd morn'g. Meet me there at breakfast, but don't
+come too early. Train won't get in till three, so I'll sleep a little
+late. Sh'd you wake me too early, I'll be as cross as a $20 bank-note,
+and make a bad impression on you."
+
+An amused smile played over Mr. Robert's face as he read this note over
+and over. What he was thinking I do not know. Aloud he said:
+
+"What a passion my cousin has for abbreviations! One would think he had
+a grudge against words from the way in which he cuts them up. And what a
+figure of speech that is! 'As cross as a twenty-dollar bank-note!' Let
+me see. I may safely assume that the letters 'Thrs' with an elevated 'd'
+mean Thursday, and as this is Thursday, and as the letter was written
+last week, and as my watch tells me it is now ten o'clock, and as my
+boots are still unblacked, and as Moses has not yet made his appearance,
+it seems altogether probable that my cousin's breakfast will be
+postponed until the middle of the day if he waits for me to help him eat
+it. I am afraid he will be as cross as half a dozen bank notes of the
+largest denomination issued when we meet."
+
+"Did you call, sah?" asked Moses, coming very deliberately into the
+room.
+
+"I am under the impression that I did, though it requires an
+extraordinary exercise of the memory to recall an event which happened
+so long ago. Have you any 'vallables' for me?"
+
+Moses _thought_ he had. This was as near an approach to anything like a
+positive statement as Moses ever made. He would go to his room and
+ascertain. Among many other evidences of unusual wisdom on the part of
+the old negro was this, that he believed himself fully capable of
+recognizing a valuable letter whenever he saw it; and it was one of his
+self-imposed duties, whenever the post brought letters for any absent
+member of his constituency, to look them over and sequestrate all the
+"vallables" until the return of the owner, so that they might be
+delivered with his own hand. Returning now he brought two "vallables"
+for Mr. Pagebrook. One of them was a printed circular, but the other
+proved to be the desired letter, which was a formal tender of a
+professorship in a New England college, with an entirely satisfactory
+salary attached. Accompanying the official notice of election was a note
+informing him that his duties, in the event of acceptance, would not
+begin until the first of January, the engagement of the retiring
+professor terminating at that time.
+
+Under the influence of this news our young friend's face brightened
+quite as perceptibly as his boots did in the hands of the old servitor.
+He wrote his letter of acceptance at once, and then proceeded to dress
+for breakfast at the Girard House, whither he walked with as light a
+step and as cheerful a bearing as if he had not been a sadly
+disappointed lover at all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Eats his Breakfast._
+
+
+Robert Pagebrook had never seen his cousin, and yet they were not
+altogether strangers to each other. Robert's father and William
+Barksdale's mother were brother and sister, and Shirley, the old
+Virginian homestead, which had been in the family for nearly two
+centuries, had passed to young Barksdale's mother by the voluntary act
+of Robert's father when, upon coming of age, he had gone west to try his
+fortune in a busier world than that of the Old Dominion. The two boys,
+William and Robert, had corresponded quite regularly in boyhood and
+quite irregularly after they grew up, and so they knew each other pretty
+well, though, as I have said, they had never met.
+
+"I am glad, very glad to see you, William," said Robert as he grasped
+his cousin's hand.
+
+"Now don't, I beg of you. Call me Billy, or Will, or anything else you
+choose, old fellow, but don't call me William, whatever you do. Nobody
+ever did but father, and he never did except of mornings when I wouldn't
+get up. Then he'd sing out 'Will-_yum_' with a sort of a horsewhip snap
+at the end of it. 'William' always reminds me of disturbed slumbers.
+Call me Billy, and I'll call you Bob. I'll do that anyhow, so you might
+as well fall into familiar ways. But come, tell me how you are and all
+about yourself. You haven't written to me since the flood; forgot to
+receive my last letter I suppose."
+
+"Probably I did. I have been forgetting a good many things. But I hope I
+have not kept you too long from your breakfast, and especially that I
+have not made you 'as cross as a twenty dollar bank-note.' Pray tell me
+what you meant by that figure of speech, will you not? I am curious to
+know where you got it and why."
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed Billy. "You'll have a lively time of it if you mean to
+unravel all my metaphors. Let me see. I must have referred to the big
+X's they print on the bank bills, or something of that sort. But let's
+go to breakfast at once. I'm as hungry as a village editor. We can talk
+over a beefsteak, or you can at least. I mean to be as still as a
+mill-pond of a cloudy night while you tell me all about yourself."
+
+And over their breakfast they talked. But in telling his story, while he
+remembered to mention all the details of his situation losing and his
+situation getting, Mr. Robert somehow forgot to say anything about his
+other disappointment. He soon learned to know and to like his cousin,
+and, which was more to the purpose, he began to enjoy him right
+heartily, in his own way, bantering him on his queer uses of English,
+half in sport, half in earnest, until the Virginian declared that they
+had grown as familiar with each other "as a pair of Irishmen at a
+wake."
+
+"I suppose you're off at once for your new place, a'n't you? This is
+September," said Billy after his cousin had finished so much of his
+story as he cared to reveal.
+
+"No," said Robert. "My duties will not begin until January, and meantime
+I must go off on a tramp somewhere to get my muscles, physical and
+financial, up again. To tell the truth I have been dawdling at Cape May
+this summer instead of going off to the mountains or the prairies, as I
+usually do, for a healthful and economical foot journey, and the result
+is that my legs and arms are sadly run down. I have been spending too
+much money too, and so cannot afford to stay around Philadelphia until
+January. I think I must go off to some of the mountain counties, where
+the people think five dollars a fortune and call anything less than a
+precipice rising ground."
+
+"Well, I reckon you won't," said the Virginian; "I've been inviting you
+to the 'home of your fathers' ever since I was born, and this is the
+very first time I ever got you to own up to a scrap of leisure as big as
+your thumb nail. I've got you now with nothing to do and nowhere to go,
+and I mean to take you with me this very evening to Virginia. We'll
+leave on the eleven o'clock train to-night, get to Richmond to-morrow at
+two, and go up home next morning in time for snack."
+
+"But, my dear Billy----"
+
+"But, my dear Bob, I won't hear a word, and I won't take no for an
+answer. That's poz roz and the king's English. I'm managing this little
+job. You can give up your rooms to-day, sell out your plunder, and stop
+expenses. Then you needn't open your pocket-book again for so long that
+you'll forget how it looks inside. Put a few ninepences into your
+breeches pocket to throw at darkeys when they hold your horse, and the
+thing's done. And won't we wake up old Shirley? I tell you it's the
+delightfulest two hundred year old establishment you ever saw or didn't
+see. As the Irish attorney said of his ancestral home: 'there isn't a
+table in the house that hasn't had jigs danced upon it, and there's not
+a chair that you can't throw at a friend's head without the slightest
+fear of breaking it.' When we get there we'll have as much fun as a pack
+of hounds on a fresh trail."
+
+"Upon my word, Billy," said the professor cousin, "your metaphors have
+the merits of freshness and originality, at the least, though now and
+then, as in the present instance, they are certainly not very
+complimentary. However, it just occurs to me that I have been wanting to
+go to Shirley 'ever since I was born,' if you will allow me to borrow
+one of your forcible phrases, and this really does seem to be a
+peculiarly good opportunity to do so. I am a good deal interested in
+dialects and provincialisms, so it would be worth my while to visit you,
+if for no other reason, because my stay at Shirley will give me an
+excellent opportunity to study some of your own expressions. 'Poz roz,'
+now, is entirely new to me, and I might make something out of it in a
+philological way."
+
+"Upon my word" said Mr. Billy, "that's a polite speech. If you'll only
+say you'll go, though, I don't care the value of a herring's left fore
+foot what use you make of me. I'm yours to command and ready for any
+sport that suits you, unless you take a notion to throw rocks at me."
+
+"Pray tell me, Billy, do Virginians ever throw rocks? I am interested in
+muscle, and should greatly like to see some one able to throw rocks. I
+have paid half a dollar many a time to see a man lift extraordinary
+weights, but the best of the showmen never dream of handling anything
+heavier than cannon-balls. It would be decidedly entertaining to see a
+man throwing rocks and things of that sort about, even if he were to use
+both hands in doing it."
+
+"Nonsense," said Billy; "I'm not one of your students getting a
+dictionary lesson. Waiter!"
+
+"What will you have, sir?" asked the waiter.
+
+"Some hot biscuit, please."
+
+"They a'n't no hot biscuits, sir."
+
+"Well some hot rolls then, or hot bread of some sort. Cold bread for
+breakfast is an abomination."
+
+"They a'n't no hot bread in the house, sir. We never keep none. Hot
+bread a'n't healthy, sir."
+
+"You impertinent----"
+
+"My dear Billy," said Mr. Bob, "pray keep your temper. 'Impertinent' is
+not the word you wish to use. The _man_ can not well be impertinent. He
+is a trifle impudent, I admit, but we can afford to overlook the
+impudence of his remark for the sake of the philological interest it
+has. Waiter, you ought to know, inasmuch as you have been brought up in
+a land of free schools, that two negatives, in English, destroy each
+other, and are equivalent to an affirmative; but the matter in which I
+am most interested just now is your remark that hot bread is not
+_healthy_. Your statement is perfectly true, and it would have been
+equally true if you had omitted the qualifying adjective 'hot.' No bread
+can be 'healthy,' because health and disease are not attributes or
+conditions of inanimate things. You probably meant, however, that hot
+bread is not wholesome, a point on which my friend here, who eats hot
+bread every day of his life, would naturally take issue with you. Please
+bring us some buttered toast."
+
+The waiter went away bewildered--questioning the sanity of Mr. Bob in
+all probability; a questioning in which Billy was half inclined to join
+him.
+
+"What on earth do you mean, Bob, by talking in that way to a waiter who
+don't know the meaning of one word in five that you use?"
+
+"Well, I meant for one thing to keep you from losing your temper and so
+spoiling your digestion. Human motives are complicated affairs, and
+hence I am by no means sure that I can further unravel my purpose in
+this case."
+
+"Return we to our muttons, then," said Billy; "I'll finish the business
+that brought me here, which is only to be present at the taking of a
+short deposition, by two or three o'clock. While I'm at it you can get
+your traps together, send your trunk to the depot, and get back here to
+dinner by four. Then we must get through the rest of the time the best
+way we can, and at eleven we'll be off. I'm crazy to see you with Phil
+once."
+
+"Phil, who is he?"
+
+"Oh! Phil is a character--a colored one. I want to see how his 'dialect'
+will affect you. I'm half afraid you'll go crazy, though, under it."
+
+"Tell me--"
+
+"No, I won't describe Phil, because I can't, and no more can anybody
+else. Phil must be seen to be appreciated. But come, I'm off for the
+notary's, and you must get you gone too, for you mustn't be late at
+dinner--that's poz."
+
+With this the two young men separated, the Virginian lawyer to attend to
+the taking of some depositions, and his cousin to surrender his
+lodgings, pack his trunk, and make such other arrangements as were
+necessary for his journey.
+
+This opportunity to visit the old homestead where his father had passed
+his boyhood was peculiarly welcome to Mr. Robert just now. There had
+always been to him a sort of glamour about the names Virginia and
+Shirley. His father's stories about his own childhood had made a deep
+impression on the mind of the boy, and to him Shirley was a palace and
+Virginia a fairy land. Whenever, in childhood, he was allowed to call a
+calf or a pig his own, he straightway bestowed upon it one or the other
+of the charmed names, and fancied that the animal grew stronger and more
+beautiful as a consequence. He had always intended to go to Shirley, but
+had never done so; just as you and I, reader, have always meant to do
+several scores of things that we have never done, though we can hardly
+say why. Just now, however, Mr. Billy's plan for his cousin was more
+than ever agreeable to Mr. Robert for various present and unusual
+reasons. He knew next to nobody in or about Philadelphia outside the
+precincts of the collegiate institute, and to hunt up acquaintances
+inside that institution was naturally enough not exactly to his taste.
+He had several months of time to dispose of in some way, and until Billy
+suggested the visit to Virginia, the best he had been able to do in the
+way of devising a time-killer was to plan a solitary wandering among the
+mountainous districts of Pennsylvania. Ordinarily he would have enjoyed
+such a journey very much, but just now he knew that Mr. Robert Pagebrook
+could hardly find a less agreeable companion than Mr. Robert Pagebrook
+himself. That little affair with Miss Nellie Currier kept coming up in
+his memory, and if the reader be a man it is altogether probable that he
+knows precisely how the memory of that story affected our young
+gentleman. He wanted company, and he wanted change, and he wanted
+out-door exercise, and where could he find all these quite so abundant
+as at an old Virginian country house? His love for Miss Nellie, he was
+sure, was a very genuine one; but he was equally sure that it was
+hopeless. Indeed, now that he knew the selfish insincerity of the damsel
+he did not even wish that his suit had prospered. This, at any rate, is
+what he thought, as you did, my dear sir, when you first learned what
+the word "Another" means when printed with a big A; and, thinking this,
+he felt that the first thing to be done in the matter was to forget
+Miss Nellie and his love for her as speedily as possible. How far he
+succeeded in doing this we shall probably see in the sequel. At present
+we have to do with the attempt only. New scenes and new people, Mr.
+Pagebrook thought, would greatly aid him in his purpose, and so the trip
+to Virginia seemed peculiarly fitting. It thus comes about that the
+scene of this young man's story suddenly shifts from Philadelphia to a
+Virginian country house, in spite of all I can do to preserve the
+dramatic unity of place. Ah! if I were _making_ this story now, I could
+confine it to a single room, compress its action into a single day, and
+do other dramatic and highly proper things; but as Mr. Robert Pagebrook
+and his friends were not stage people, and, moreover, as they were not
+aware that their goings and comings would ever weave themselves into the
+woof of a story at all, they utterly failed to regulate their actions in
+accordance with critical rules, and went roving about over the country
+quite in a natural way and without the slightest regard for my
+convenience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook learns something about the Customs of the Country._
+
+
+When our two young men reached the station at which they were to leave
+the cars, they found awaiting them there the lumbering old carriage
+which had been a part of the Shirley establishment ever since Mr. Billy
+could remember. This vehicle was known to everybody in the neighborhood
+as the Shirley carriage, not because it was older or clumsier or uglier
+than its fellows, for indeed it was not, but merely because every
+carriage in a Virginian neighborhood is known to everybody quite as well
+as its owner is. To Mr. Robert Pagebrook, however, the vehicle presented
+itself as an antique and a curiosity. Its body was suspended by leathern
+straps which came out of some high semicircular springs at the back, and
+it was thus raised so far above the axles that one could enter it only
+by mounting quite a stairway of steps, which unfolded themselves from
+its interior. Swinging thus by its leathern straps, the great heavy
+carriage body really seemed to have no support at all, and Mr. Robert
+found it necessary to exercise all the faith there was in him in order
+to believe that to get inside of the vehicle was not a sure and speedy
+way of securing two or three broken bones. He got in, however, at his
+cousin's invitation, and soon discovered that although the motion of the
+suspended carriage body closely resembled that of a fore and aft
+schooner in a gale, it was by no means unpleasant, as the worst that the
+roughest road could do was to make the vibratory motion a trifle more
+decided than usual in its nature. A jolt was simply impossible.
+
+As soon as he got his sea legs on sufficiently to keep himself tolerably
+steady on his seat, Mr. Rob began to look at the country or, more
+properly, to study the road-side, there being little else visible, so
+thickly grew the trees and underbrush on each side.
+
+"How far must we drive before reaching Shirley?" he asked after awhile,
+as the carriage stopped for the opening of a gate.
+
+"About four miles now," said his cousin. "It's five miles, or nearly
+that, from the Court House."
+
+"The court house? Where is that?"
+
+"O the village where we left the train! That's the Court House."
+
+"Ah! you Virginians call a village a court house, do you?"
+
+"Certainly, when it's the county-seat and a'n't much else. Now and then
+court houses put on airs and call themselves names, but they don't often
+make much of it. There's Powhatan Court House now, I believe it tried to
+get itself called 'Scottsville,' or something of that sort, but nobody
+knows it as anything but Powhatan Court House. Our county-seat has
+always been modest, and if it has any name I never heard of it."
+
+"That's one interesting custom of the country, at any rate. Pray tell
+me, is it another of your customs to dispense wholly with public roads?
+I ask for information merely, and the question is suggested by the fact
+that we seem to have driven away from the Court House by the private
+road which we are still following."
+
+"Why, this isn't a private road. It's one of the principal public roads
+of the county."
+
+"How about these gates then?" asked Robert as the negro boy who rode
+behind the carriage jumped down to open another.
+
+"Well, what about them?"
+
+"Why, I never saw a gate across a public thoroughfare before. Do you
+really permit such things in Virginia?"
+
+"O yes! certainly. It saves a great deal of fencing, and the Court never
+refuses permission to put up a gate in any reasonable place, only the
+owner is bound to make it easy to open on horseback--or, as you would
+put it, 'by a person riding on horseback.' You see I'm growing
+circumspect in my choice of words since I've been with you. May be
+you'll reform us all, and make us talk tolerably good English before you
+go back. If you do, I'll give you some 'testimonials' to your worth as a
+professor."
+
+"But about those gates, Billy. I am all the more interested in them now
+that I know them as another 'custom of the country.' How do their owners
+keep them shut? Don't people leave them open pretty often?"
+
+"Never; a Virginian is always 'on honor' so far as his neighbors are
+concerned, and the man who would leave a neighbor's gate open might as
+well take to stealing at once for all the difference it would make in
+his social standing."
+
+It was not only the gates, but the general appearance of the road as
+well, that astonished young Pagebrook: a public road, consisting of a
+single carriage track, with a grass plat on each side, fringed with
+thick undergrowth and overhung by the branches of great trees, was to
+him a novelty, and a very pleasant novelty too, in which he was greatly
+interested.
+
+"Who lives there?" asked Robert, as a large house came into view.
+
+"That's The Oaks, Cousin Edwin's place."
+
+"And who is your Cousin Edwin?"
+
+"_My_ Cousin Edwin? He's yours too, I reckon. Cousin Edwin Pagebrook. He
+is our second cousin or, as the old ladies put it, first cousin once
+removed."
+
+"Pray tell me what a first cousin once removed is, will you not, Billy?
+I am wholly ignorant on the subject of cousinhood in its higher
+branches, and as I understand that a good deal of stress is laid upon
+relationships of this sort in Virginia, I should like to inform myself
+in advance if possible."
+
+"I really don't know whether I can or not. Any of the old ladies will
+lay it all out to you, illustrating it with their keys arranged like a
+genealogical tree. I don't know much about it, but I reckon I can make
+you understand this much, as I have Cousin Edwin's case to go by. It's a
+'case in point' as we lawyers say. Let's see. Cousin Edwin's
+grandfather was our great grandfather; then his father was our
+grandfather's brother, and that makes him first cousin to my mother and
+your father. Now I would call mother's first cousin my second cousin,
+but the old ladies, who pay a good deal of attention to these matters,
+say not. They say that my mother's or my father's first cousin is my
+first cousin once removed, and his children are my second cousins, and
+they prove it all, too, with their keys."
+
+"Well then," asked Robert, "if that is so, what is the exact
+relationship between Cousin Edwin's children and my father or your
+mother?"
+
+"O don't! You bewilder me. I told you I didn't know anything about it.
+You must get some old lady to explain it with her keys, and when she
+gets through you won't know who you are, to save you."
+
+"That is encouraging, certainly," said Mr. Robert.
+
+"O it's no matter! You're safe enough in calling everybody around here
+'cousin' if you're sure they a'n't any closer kin. The fact is, all the
+best families here have intermarried so often that the relationships are
+all mixed up, and we always claim kin when there is any ghost of a
+chance for it. Besides, the Pagebrooks are the biggest tadpoles in the
+puddle; and so, if they don't 'cousin' all their kin-folks people think
+they're stuck-up."
+
+"Thank you, Billy; but tell me, am I, being a Pagebrook, under any
+consequent obligation to consider myself a tadpole during my stay in
+Virginia?"
+
+Billy's only answer was a laugh.
+
+"Now, Billy," Robert resumed, "tell me about the people of Shirley. I
+am sadly ignorant, you understand, and I do not wish to make mistakes.
+Begin at top, and tell me how I shall call them all."
+
+"Well, there's father; you will call him Uncle Carter, of course. He is
+Col. Carter Barksdale, you know."
+
+"I knew his name was Carter, of course, but I did not know he had ever
+been a military man."
+
+"A military man! No, he never was. What made you think that?"
+
+"Why you called him 'Colonel.'"
+
+"O that's nothing! You'll find every gentleman past middle age wearing
+some sort of title or other. They call father 'Colonel Barksdale,' and
+Cousin Edwin 'Major Pagebrook,' though neither of them ever saw a tent
+that I know of."
+
+"Ah! another interesting custom of the country. But pray go on."
+
+"Well, mother is 'Aunt Mary,' you know, and then there's Aunt
+Catherine."
+
+"Indeed! who is she? Is she my aunt?"
+
+"I really don't know. Let me see. No, I reckon not; nor mine either, for
+that matter. I think she's father's fourth or fifth cousin, with a
+remove or two added, possibly, but you must call her 'Aunt' anyhow; we
+all do, and she'd never forgive you if you didn't. You see she knew your
+father, and I reckon he called her 'Aunt.' It's a way we have here. She
+is a maiden lady, you understand, and Shirley is her home. You'll find
+somebody of that sort in nearly every house, and they're a delightful
+sort of somebody, too, to have round. She'll post you up on
+relationships. She can use up a whole key-basket full of keys, and run
+'em over by name backwards or forwards, just as you please. You needn't
+follow her though if you object to a headache. All you've got to do is
+to let her tell you about it, and you say 'yes' now and then. She puts
+me through every week or so. Then there's Cousin Sudie, my father's
+niece and ward. She's been an orphan almost all her life, and so she's
+always lived with us. Father is her guardian, and he always calls her
+'daughter.' You'll call her 'Cousin Sue,' of course."
+
+"Then she is akin to me too, is she?"
+
+"Of course. She's father's own brother's child."
+
+"But, Billy, your father is only my uncle by marriage, and I do not
+understand how----"
+
+"O bother! If you're going to count it up, I reckon there a'n't any real
+relationship; but she's your cousin, anyhow, and you'll offend her if
+you refuse to own it. Call her 'Cousin,' and be done with it."
+
+"Being one of the large Pagebrook tadpoles, I suppose I must. However,
+in the case of a young lady, I shall not find it difficult, I dare
+say."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook makes Some Acquaintances._
+
+
+Mr. Robert had often heard of "an Old Virginian welcome," but precisely
+what constituted it he never knew until the carriage in which he rode
+drove around the "circle" and stopped in front of the Shirley mansion.
+The first thing which struck him as peculiar about the preparations made
+for his reception was the large number of small negroes who thought
+their presence necessary to the occasion. Little black faces grinned at
+him from behind every tree, and about a dozen of them peered out from a
+safe position behind "ole mas'r and ole missus." Mr. Billy had
+telegraphed from Richmond announcing the coming of his guest, and so
+every darkey on the plantation knew that "Mas' Joe's son" was "a comin'
+wid Mas' Billy from de Norf," and every one that could find a safe
+hiding place in the yard was there to see him come.
+
+Col. Barksdale met him at the carriage while the ladies were in waiting
+on the porch, as anybody but a Virginian would put it--_in_ the porch,
+as they themselves would have phrased it. The welcome was of the right
+hearty order which nobody ever saw outside of Virginia--a welcome which
+made the guest feel himself at once a very part of the establishment.
+
+Inside the house our young friend found himself sorely puzzled. The
+furniture was old in style but very elegant, a thing for which he was
+fully prepared, but it stood upon absolutely bare white floors. There
+were both damask and lace curtains at the windows, but not a vestige of
+carpet was anywhere to be seen. Mr. Robert said nothing, but wondered
+silently whether it was possible that he had arrived in the midst of
+house-cleaning. Conversation, luncheon, and finally dinner at four,
+occupied his attention, however, and after dinner the whole family
+gathered in the porch--for really I believe the Virginians are right
+about that preposition. I will ask Mr. Robert himself some day.
+
+He soon found himself thoroughly at home in the old family mansion,
+among relatives who had never been strangers to him in any proper sense
+of the term. Not only was Mrs. Barksdale his father's sister, but Col.
+Barksdale himself had been that father's nearest friend. The two had
+gone west together to seek their fortunes there; but the Colonel had
+returned after a few years to practice his profession in his native
+state and ultimately to marry his friend's sister. Mr. Robert soon felt
+himself literally at home, therefore, and the feeling was intensely
+enjoyable, too, to a young man who for ten years had not known any home
+other than that of a bachelor's quarters in a college community. His
+reception at Shirley had not been the greeting of a guest but rather the
+welcoming of a long wandering son of the house. To his relatives there
+he seemed precisely that, and their feeling in the case soon became his
+own. This "clannishness," as it is called, may not be peculiar to
+Virginia of all the states, but I have never seen it half so strongly
+manifested anywhere else as there.
+
+Toward evening Maj. Pagebrook and his son Ewing rode over to call upon
+their cousin Robert, and after the introductions were over, "Cousin
+Edwin" went on to talk of Robert's father, for whom he had felt an
+unusual degree of affection, as all the relatives had, for that matter,
+Robert's father having been an especial favorite in the family. Then the
+conversation became more general.
+
+"When are you going to cut that field of tobacco by the prize barn,
+Cousin Edwin?" asked Billy. "I see it's ripening pretty rapidly."
+
+"Yes, it is getting pretty ripe in spots, and I wanted to put the hands
+into it yesterday," replied Maj. Pagebrook; "but Sarah Ann thought we'd
+better keep them plowing for wheat a day or two longer, and now I'm
+afraid it's going to rain before I can get a first cutting done."
+
+"How much did you get for the tobacco you sent to Richmond the other
+day, Edwin?" asked the colonel.
+
+"Only five dollars and three cents a hundred, average."
+
+"You'd have done a good deal better if you'd sold in the spring,
+wouldn't you?"
+
+"Yes, a good deal. I wanted to sell then, but Sarah Ann insisted on
+holding it till fall. By the way, I'm going to put all my lots, except
+the one by the creek, in corn next year, and raise hardly any tobacco."
+
+"All but the creek lot? Why that's the only good corn land you have,
+Edwin, and it isn't safe to put tobacco in it either, for it overflows a
+little."
+
+"Yes, I know it. But Sarah Ann is discouraged by the price we got for
+tobacco this year, and doesn't want me to plant the lots next season at
+all."
+
+"Why didn't you bring Cousin Sarah Ann over and come to dinner to-day,
+Cousin Edwin?" asked Miss Barksdale, coming out of the dining-room,
+key-basket in hand, to speak to the guests.
+
+"Oh! we've only one carriage horse now, you know. I sold the black last
+week, and haven't been able to find another yet."
+
+"Sold the black! Why, what was that for, Cousin Ed! I thought you
+specially liked him?" said Billy.
+
+"So I did; but Sarah Ann didn't like a black and a gray together, and
+she wouldn't let me sell the gray on any terms, though I could have
+matched the black at once. Winger has a colt well broken that's a
+perfect match for him. Come, Ewing, we must be going. Sarah Ann said we
+must be home to tea without fail. You'll come to The Oaks, Robert, of
+course. Sarah Ann will expect you very soon, and you mustn't stand on
+ceremony, you know, but come as often as you can while you stay at
+Shirley."
+
+"What do you think of Cousin Edwin, Bob?" asked Billy when the guests
+had gone.
+
+"That he is a very excellent person, and----"
+
+"And what? Speak out. Let's hear what you think."
+
+"Well, that he is a very dutiful husband."
+
+"Bob, I'd give a pretty for your knack at saying things. Your tongue's
+as soft as a feather bed. But wait till you know the madam. You'll
+say----"
+
+"My son, you shouldn't prejudice Robert against people he doesn't know.
+Sarah Ann has many good qualities--I suppose."
+
+"Well, then, I don't suppose anything of the sort, else she would have
+found out how good a man Cousin Edwin is long ago, and would have
+behaved herself better every way."
+
+"William, you are uncharitable!"
+
+"Not a bit of it, mother. Your charity is like a microscope when it is
+hunting for something good to say of people. Did you ever hear of the
+dead Dutchman?"
+
+"Do pray, Billy, don't tell me any of your anecdotes now."
+
+"Just this one, mother. There was a dead Dutchman who had been the worst
+Dutchman in the business. When the people came to sit up with his
+corpse--don't run, mother, I'm nearly through--they couldn't find
+anything good to say about him, and as they didn't want to say anything
+bad there was a profound silence in the room. Finally one old Dutchman,
+heaving a sigh, remarked: 'Vell, Hans vas vone goot schmoker, anyhow.'
+Let me see. Cousin Sarah Ann gives good dinners, anyhow, only she piles
+too much on the table. See how charitable I am, mother. I have actually
+found and designated the madam's one good point."
+
+"Come, come, my son," said the colonel, "you shouldn't talk so."
+
+Shortly after tea the two young men pleaded the weariness of travelers
+in excuse for an early bed going. Mr. Bob was offered his choice between
+occupying alone the Blue Room, which is the state guest chamber in most
+Virginian houses, and taking a bed in Billy's room. He promptly chose
+the latter, and when they were alone, he turned to his cousin and asked:
+
+"Billy, have you such a thing as a dictionary about?"
+
+"Nothing but a law dictionary, I believe. Will that do?"
+
+"Really I do not know. Perhaps it might."
+
+"What do you want to find?" asked Billy.
+
+"I only wish to ascertain whether or not we arrived here in time for
+'snack.' You said we would, I believe."
+
+"Well, we did, didn't we?"
+
+"That is precisely what I wish to find out. Having never heard of
+'snack' until you mentioned it as one of the things we should find at
+Shirley, I have been curious to know what it is like, and so I have been
+watching for it ever since we got here. Pray tell me what it is?"
+
+"Well, that's a good one. I must tell Sudie that, and get her to
+introduce you formally to-morrow."
+
+"It is another interesting custom of the country, I suppose."
+
+"Indeed it is; and it isn't one of those customs that are 'more honored
+in the breach than the observance,' either."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook makes a Good Impression._
+
+
+Young Pagebrook was an early riser. Not that he was afflicted with one
+of those unfortunate consciences which make of early rising a penance,
+by any means. He was not prejudiced against lying abed, nor bigoted
+about getting up. He quoted no adages on the subject, and was not
+illogical enough to believe that getting up early and yawning for an
+hour or two every morning would bring health, wisdom, or wealth to
+anybody. In short, he was an early riser not on principle but of
+necessity. Somehow his eyelids had a way of popping themselves open
+about sunrise or earlier, and his great brawny limbs could not be kept
+in bed long after this happened. He got up for precisely the same reason
+that most people lie abed, namely, because there was nothing else to do.
+On the morning after his arrival at Shirley he awoke early and heard two
+things which attracted his attention. The first was a sound which
+puzzled him more than a little. It was a steady, monotonous scraping of
+a most unaccountable kind--somewhat like the sound of a carpenter's
+plane and somewhat like that of a saw. Had it been out of doors he
+would have thought nothing of it; but clearly it was in the house, and
+not only so, but in every part of the house except the bedrooms. Scrape,
+scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape. What it meant he could not guess. As he
+lay there wondering about it he heard another sound, greatly more
+musical, at which he jumped out of bed and began dressing, wondering at
+this sound, too, quite as much as at the other, though he knew perfectly
+well that this was nothing more than a human voice--Miss Sudie's, to
+wit. He wondered if there ever was such a voice before or ever would be
+again. Not that the young woman was singing, for she was doing nothing
+of the sort. She was merely giving some directions to the servants about
+household matters, but her voice was music nevertheless, and Mr. Bob
+made up his mind to hear it to better advantage by going down-stairs at
+once. Now I happen to know that this young woman's voice was in no way
+peculiar to herself. Every well-bred girl in Virginia has the same rich,
+full, soft tone, and they all say, as she did, "grauss," "glauss"
+"bausket," "cyarpet," "cyart," "gyarden," and "gyirl." But it so
+happened that Mr. Bob had never heard a Virginian girl talk before he
+met Miss Barksdale, and to him her rich German a's and the musical tones
+of her voice were peculiarly her own. Perhaps all these things would
+have impressed him differently if "Cousin Sudie" had been an ugly girl.
+I have no means of determining the point, inasmuch as "Cousin Sudie" was
+certainly anything else than ugly.
+
+Mr. Robert made a hasty toilet and descended to the great hall, or
+passage, as they call it in Virginia. As he did so he discovered the
+origin of the scraping sound which had puzzled him, as it puzzles
+everybody else who hears it for the first time. Dry "pine tags" (which
+is Virginian for the needles of the pine) were scattered all over the
+floors, and several negro women were busy polishing the hard white
+planks by rubbing them with an indescribable implement made of a section
+of log, a dozen corn husks ("shucks," the Virginians call them--a "corn
+husk" in Virginia signifying a _cob_ always), and a pole for handle.
+
+"Good morning, Cousin Robert. You're up soon," said the little woman,
+coming out of the dining-room and putting a soft, warm little hand in
+his great palm.
+
+Now to young Pagebrook this was a totally new use of the word "soon,"
+and I dare say he would have been greatly interested in it but for the
+fact that the trim little woman who stood there, key-basket in hand,
+interested him more.
+
+"You've caught me in the midst of my housekeeping, but never mind; only
+be careful, or you'll slip on the pine tags; they're as slippery as
+glass."
+
+"And is that the reason they are scattered on the floor?"
+
+"Yes, we polish with them. Up North you wax your floors instead, don't
+you?"
+
+"Yes, for balls and the like, I believe, but commonly we have carpets."
+
+"What! in summer time, too?"
+
+"O yes! certainly, Why not?"
+
+"Why, they're so warm. We take ours up soon in the spring, and never put
+them down again until fall."
+
+This time Mr. Robert observed the queer use of the word "soon," but said
+nothing about it. He said instead:
+
+"What a lovely morning it is! How I should like to ride horseback in
+this air!"
+
+"Would you let me ride with you?" asked the little maiden.
+
+"Such a question, Cousin Sudie!"
+
+Now I am free to confess that this last remark was unworthy Mr.
+Pagebrook. If not ungrammatical, it is at least of questionable
+construction, and so not at all like Mr. Pagebrook's usage. But the
+demoralizing effect of Miss Sudie Barksdale's society did not stop here
+by any means, as we shall see in due time.
+
+"If you'd really like to ride, I'll have the horses brought," said the
+little lady.
+
+"And you with me?"
+
+"Yes, if I may."
+
+"I shall be more than happy."
+
+"Dick, run up to the barn and tell Uncle Polidore to saddle Patty for me
+and Graybeard for your Mas' Robert. Do you hear? Excuse me, Cousin
+Robert, and I'll put on my habit."
+
+Ten minutes later the pair reined in their horses on the top of a little
+hill, to look at the sunrise. The morning was just cool enough to be
+thoroughly pleasant, and the exhilaration which comes of nothing else so
+surely as of rapid riding began to tell upon the spirits of both.
+Cousin Sudie was a good rider and a graceful one, and she knew it.
+Robert's riding hitherto had been done, for the most part, in cities,
+and on smooth roads; but he held his horse with a firm hand, and
+controlled him perforce of a strong will, which, with great personal
+fearlessness and a habit of doing well whatever he undertook to do at
+all, and undertaking whatever was expected of him, abundantly supplied
+the lack he had of experience in the rougher riding of Virginia on the
+less perfectly trained horses in use there. He was a stalwart fellow,
+with shapely limbs and perfect ease of movement, so that on horseback he
+was a very agreeable young gentleman to look at, a fact of which Miss
+Sudie speedily became conscious. Her rides were chiefly without a
+cavalier, as they were usually taken early in the morning before her
+cousin Billy thought of getting up; and naturally enough she enjoyed the
+presence of so agreeable a young gentleman as Mr. Rob certainly was, and
+her enjoyment of his company--she being a woman--was not diminished in
+the least by the discovery that to his intellectual and social
+accomplishments, which were very genuine, there were added a handsome
+face, a comely person, and a manly enthusiasm for out-door exercise.
+When he pulled some wild flowers which grew by the road-side without
+dismounting--a trick he had picked up somewhere--she wondered at the
+ease and grace with which it was done; when he added to the flowers a
+little cluster of purple berries from a wild vine, of which I do not
+know the name, and a sprig of sumac, still wet with dew, she admired his
+taste; and when he gallantly asked leave to twine the whole into her
+hair, for her hat had come off, as good-looking young women's hats
+always do on such occasions, she thought him "just nice."
+
+It is really astonishing how rapidly acquaintanceships form under
+favorable circumstances. These two young people were shy, both of them,
+and on the preceding day had hardly spoken to each other at all. When
+they mounted their horses that morning they were almost strangers, and
+they might have remained only half acquaintances for a week or a
+fortnight but for that morning's ride. They were gone an hour, perhaps,
+in all, and when they sat down to breakfast they were on terms of easy
+familiarity and genuine friendship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Learns Several Things._
+
+
+After breakfast Robert walked out with Billy to see the negroes at work
+cutting tobacco, an interesting operation always, and especially so when
+one sees it for the first time.
+
+"Gilbert," said Billy to his "head man," "did you find any ripe enough
+to cut in the lot there by the prize barn?"
+
+"No sah; dat's de greenest lot of tobawkah on de plantation, for all
+'twas plaunted fust. I dunno what to make uv it."
+
+"Why, Billy, I thought Cousin Edwin owned the 'prize' barn!" said
+Robert.
+
+"So he does--his."
+
+"Are there two of them then?"
+
+"Two of them? What do you mean? Every plantation has its prize barn, of
+course."
+
+"Indeed! Who gives the prizes?"
+
+"Ha! ha! Bob, that's good; only you'd better ask _me_ always when you
+want to know about things here, else you'll get yourself laughed at. A
+prize barn is simply the barn in which we prize tobacco."
+
+"And what is 'prizing' tobacco?"
+
+"Possibly 'prize' a'n't good English, Bob, but it's the standard
+Ethiopian for pressing, and everybody here uses it. We press the tobacco
+in hogsheads, you know, and we call it prizing. It never struck me as a
+peculiarly Southern use of the word, but perhaps it is for all that.
+You're as sharp set as a circular saw after dialect, a'n't you?"
+
+"I really do not know precisely how sharp set a circular saw is, but I
+am greatly interested in your peculiar uses of English, certainly."
+
+Upon returning to the house Billy said:
+
+"Bob I must let you take care of yourself for two or three hours now, as
+I have some papers to draw up and they won't wait. Next week is court
+week, and I've got a great deal to do between now and then. But you're
+at home you know, old fellow."
+
+So saying Mr. Billy went to his office, which was situated in the yard,
+while Robert strolled into the house. Looking into the dining-room he
+saw there Cousin Sudie. Possibly the young gentleman was looking for
+her. I am sure I do not know. But whether he had expected to find her
+there or not, he certainly felt some little surprise as he looked at
+her.
+
+"Why, Cousin Sudie, is it possible that you are washing the dishes?"
+
+"O certainly! and the plates and cups too. In fact, I wash up all the
+things once a day."
+
+"Pray tell me, cousin, precisely what you understand by 'dishes,' if I'm
+not intruding," said Robert.
+
+"O not at all! come in and sit down. You'll find it pleasanter there by
+the window. 'Dishes?' Why, that is a dish, and that and that," pointing
+to them.
+
+"I see. The word 'dishes' is not a generic term in Virginia, but applies
+only to platters and vegetable dishes. What do you call them in the
+aggregate, Cousin Sudie? I mean plates, platters, cups, saucers, and
+everything."
+
+"Why 'things,' I suppose. We speak of 'breakfast things,' 'tea things,'
+'dinner things.' But why were you astonished to see me washing them,
+Cousin Robert?"
+
+"Perhaps I ought to have known better, but the fact is I had an
+impression that Southern ladies were wholly exempt from all work except,
+perhaps, a little embroidery or some such thing."
+
+"O my! I wish you could see me during circuit court week, when Uncle
+Carter and Cousin Billy bring the judge and the lawyers home with them
+at all sorts of odd hours; and they always bring the hungriest ones
+there are too. I fall at once into a chronic state of washing up things,
+and don't recover until court is over."
+
+[Illustration: "I FALL AT ONCE INTO A CHRONIC STATE UP WASHING UP
+THINGS."]
+
+"But really, cousin--pardon me if I am inquisitive, for I am greatly
+interested in this life here in Virginia, it is so new to me--how is it
+that _you_ must wash up things at all?"
+
+"Why, I carry the keys, you know. I'm housekeeper."
+
+"Well, but you have servants enough, certainly, and to spare."
+
+"O yes! but every lady washes up the things at least once a day. It
+would never do to trust it altogether to the servants, you know."
+
+"None of them are sufficiently careful and trustworthy, do you mean?"
+
+"Well, not exactly that; but it's our way here, and if a lady were to
+neglect it people would think her a poor housekeeper."
+
+"Are there any other duties devolving upon Virginian housekeepers
+besides 'washing up things?' You see I am trying to learn all I can of a
+life which is as charmingly strange to me as that of Turkey or China
+would be if I were to go to either country."
+
+"Any other duties? Indeed there are, and you shall learn what they are,
+if you won't find it stupid to go my rounds with me. I'm going now."
+
+"I should find dullness itself interesting with you as my fellow
+observer of it."
+
+"Right gallantly said, kind sir," said Miss Sudie, with an exaggerated
+curtsy. "But if you're going to make pretty speeches I'll get impudent
+directly. I'm dreadfully given to it anyhow, and I've a notion to say
+one impudent thing right now."
+
+"Pray do. I pardon you in advance."
+
+"Well, then, what makes you say 'Virginian housekeepers?'"
+
+"What else should I say?"
+
+"Why, Virginia housekeepers, of course, like anybody else."
+
+"But 'Virginia' is not an adjective, cousin. You would not say 'England
+housekeepers' or 'France housekeepers,' would you?" asked Robert.
+
+"No, but I would say 'New York housekeepers,' 'Massachusetts
+housekeepers,' or 'New Jersey housekeepers,' and so I say 'Virginia
+housekeepers,' too. I reckon you would find it a little troublesome to
+carry out your rule, wouldn't you, Cousin Robert?"
+
+"I am fairly beaten, I own; and in consideration of my frank
+acknowledgment of defeat, perhaps you will permit _me_ to be a trifle
+impudent."
+
+"After that gallant speech you made just now, I can hardly believe such
+a thing possible. But let me hear you try, please."
+
+"O it's very possible, I assure you!" said Robert. "See if it is not.
+What I want to ask is, why you Virginians so often use the word 'reckon'
+in the sense of 'think' or 'presume,' as you did a moment since?"
+
+"Because it's right," said Sudie.
+
+"No, cousin, it is not good English," replied Robert.
+
+"Perhaps not, but it's _good Virginian_, and that's better for my
+purposes. Besides, it must be good English. St. Paul used it twice."
+
+"Did he? I was not aware that the Apostle to the Gentiles spoke English
+at all."
+
+"Come, Cousin Robert, I must give out dinner now. Do you want to carry
+my key-basket?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+_Miss Sudie makes an Apt Quotation._
+
+
+My friend who writes novels tells me that there is no other kind of
+exercise which so perfectly rests an over-tasked brain as riding on
+horseback does. His theory is that when the mind is overworked it will
+not quit working at command, but goes on with the labor after the tools
+have been laid aside. If the worker goes to bed, either he finds it
+impossible to go to sleep or sleeping he dreams, his mind thus working
+harder in sleep than if he were awake. Walking, this novelist friend
+says, affords no relief. On the contrary, one thinks better when walking
+than at any other time. But on horseback he finds it impossible to
+confine his thoughts to any subject for two minutes together. He may
+begin as many trains of thought as he chooses, but he never gets past
+their beginning. The motion of the animal jolts it all up into a jumble,
+and rest is the inevitable result. The man's animal spirits rise, in
+sympathy, perhaps, with those of his horse, and as the animal in him
+begins to assert itself his intellect yields to its master and suffers
+itself to become quiescent.
+
+Now it is possible that Mr. Robert Pagebrook had found out this fact
+about horseback exercise, and determined to profit by it to the extent
+of securing all the intellectual rest he could during his stay at
+Shirley. At any rate, his early morning ride with "Cousin Sudie" was
+repeated, not once, but every day when decided rain did not interfere.
+He became greatly interested, too, in the Virginian system of
+housekeeping, and made daily study of it in company with Miss Sudie,
+whose key-basket he carried as she went her rounds from dining-room to
+smoke-house, from smoke-house to store-room, from store-room to garden,
+and from garden to the shady gable of the house, where Miss Sudie "set"
+the churn every morning, a process which consisted of scalding it out,
+putting in the cream, and wrapping wet cloths all over the head of it
+and far up the dasher handle, as a precaution against the possible
+results of carelessness on the part of the half dozen little darkeys
+whose daily duty it was to "chun." Mr. Robert soon became well versed in
+all the mysteries of "giving out" dinner and other things pertaining to
+the office of housekeeper--an office in which every Virginian woman
+takes pride, and one in the duties of which every well-bred Virginian
+girl is thoroughly skilled. (Corollary--good dinners and general
+comfort.)
+
+Old "Aunty" cooks are always extremely slow of motion, and so the young
+ladies who carry the keys have a good deal of necessary leisure during
+their morning rounds. Miss Sudie had a pretty little habit, as a good
+many other young women there have, of carrying a book in her key-basket,
+so that she might read while aunt Kizzey (I really do not know of what
+proper noun this very common one is an abbreviation) made up her tray.
+Picking up a volume he found there one morning, Robert continued a
+desultory conversation by saying:
+
+"You don't read Montaigne, do you, Cousin Sudie?"
+
+"O yes! I read everything--or anything, rather. I never saw a book I
+couldn't get something out of, except Longfellow."
+
+"Except Longfellow!" exclaimed Robert in surprise. "Is it possible you
+don't enjoy Longfellow? Why, that is heresy of the rankest kind!"
+
+"I know it is, but I'm a heretic in a good many things. I hate
+Longfellow's hexameters; I don't like Tennyson; and I can't understand
+Browning any better than he understands himself. I know I ought to like
+them all, as you all up North do, but I don't."
+
+Mr. Robert was shocked. Here was a young girl, fresh and healthy, who
+could read prosy old Montaigne's chatter with interest; who knew Pope by
+heart, and Dryden almost as well; who read the prose and poetry of the
+eighteenth century constantly, as he knew; and who, on a former
+occasion, had pleaded guilty to a liking for sonnets, but who could find
+nothing to like in Tennyson, Longfellow, or Browning. Somehow the
+discovery was not an agreeable one to him though he could hardly say
+why, and so he chose not to pursue the subject further just then. He
+said instead:
+
+"That is the queerest Virginianism I've heard yet--'you all.'"
+
+"It's a very convenient one, you'll admit, and a Virginian don't care
+to go far out of his way in such things."
+
+"You will think me critical this morning, Cousin Sudie, but I often
+wonder at the carelessness, not of Virginians only, but of everybody
+else, in the use of contractions. 'Don't,' for instance, is well enough
+as a contraction for 'do not, but nearly everybody uses it, as you did
+just now, for 'does not.'"
+
+"Do don't lecture me, Cousin Robert. I'm a heretic, I tell you, in
+grammar."
+
+"'Do don't' is the richest provincialism I have heard yet, Cousin Sudie.
+I really must make a note of that."
+
+"Cousin Robert, do you read Montaigne?"
+
+"Sometimes. Why?"
+
+"Do you remember what he says about custom and grammar?"
+
+"No. What is it?"
+
+"He says it, remember, and not I. He says 'they that fight custom with
+grammar are fools.' What a rude old fellow he was, wasn't he?"
+
+Mr. Pagebrook suddenly remembered that he was to dine that day at his
+cousin Edwin's house, and that it was time for him to go, as he intended
+to walk, Graybeard having fallen lame during that morning's gallop with
+Miss Sudie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Meets an Acquaintance._
+
+
+Mr. Robert left the house on his way to The Oaks in an excellent humor
+with himself and with everybody else. His cousin Billy and his uncle
+Col. Barksdale were both absent, in attendance upon a court in another
+county, and so Mr. Robert had recently been left almost alone with Miss
+Sudie, and now that they had become the very best of friends our young
+man enjoyed this state of affairs right heartily. In truth Miss Sudie
+was a young lady very much to Mr. Robert's taste, in saying which I pay
+that young gentleman as handsome a compliment as any well regulated man
+could wish.
+
+Mr. Robert walked briskly out of the front gate and down the road,
+enjoying the bright sun and the rich coloring of the October woodlands,
+and making merry in his heart by running over in his memory the chats he
+had been having of late with the little woman who carried the keys at
+Shirley. If he had been forced to tell precisely what had been said in
+those conversations, it must be confessed that a stranger would have
+found very little of interest in the repetition, but somehow the
+recollection brought a frequent smile to our young friend's face and
+put an additional springiness into his step. His intercourse with this
+cousin by brevet may not have been especially brilliant or of a nature
+calculated to be particularly interesting to other people, but to him it
+had been extremely agreeable, without doubt.
+
+"Mornin' Mas' Robert," said Phil, as Robert passed the place at which
+the old negro was working. "How is ye dis mornin'?"
+
+"Good morning, Phil. I am very well, I thank you. How are you, Phil?"
+
+"Poorly, thank God. Ha! ha! ha! Dat's de way Bro' Joe and all de folks
+always says it. Dey never will own up to bein' rale well. But I tell ye
+now Mas' Robert, Phil's a well nigger _always_. I keeps up my eend de
+row all de time. I kin knock de spots out de work all day, daunce jigs
+till two o'clock, an' go 'possum huntin' till mornin' comes. Is ye ever
+been 'possum huntin', Mas' Robert?"
+
+"No; I believe I never hunted opossums, but I should greatly like to try
+it, Phil."
+
+"Would ye? Gim me yer han' Mas' Robert. You jes set de time now, and if
+Phil don't show you de sights o' 'possum huntin' you ken call me a po'
+white folkses nigger. Dat's a fac'."
+
+Robert promised to make the necessary appointment in due time, and was
+just starting off again on his tramp, when Phil asked:
+
+"Whare ye boun' dis mornin', Mas' Robert?"
+
+"I'm going over to dine at The Oaks, Phil."
+
+"Yer jest out de house in time. Dar comes Mas' Charles Harrison."
+
+"I do not understand you, Phil. Why do you say I am out of the house
+just in time?"
+
+"Mas' Robert, is you got two good eyes? Mas' Charles is a doctor you
+know, but dey a'n't nobody sick at Shirley. May be he's afraid Miss
+Sudie's gwine to get sick. Hi! git up Roley! dis a'n't plowin' mauster's
+field: g'long I tell ye!"
+
+As Phil turned away Dr. Harrison rode up.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Pagebrook. On your way to The Oaks?"
+
+"I was, but if you are going to Shirley I will walk back with you!"
+
+"O no! no! I am only going to stop there a moment. I am on my way to see
+some patients at Exenholm, and as I had to go past Shirley I brought the
+mail, that's all. I'll not be there ten minutes, and I know they're
+expecting you at The Oaks. I brought Ewing along with me from the Court
+House. Foggy had been too much for him again."
+
+"Why the boy promised me he would not gamble again."
+
+"Oh! it's hardly gambling. Only a little game of loo. Every gentleman
+plays a little. I take a hand myself, now and then; but Foggy is a
+pretty old bird, you know, and he's too much for your cousin. Ewing
+oughtn't to play with _him_, of course, and that's why I brought him
+away with me. By the way, we're going to get a fox up in a day or two
+and show you some sport. The tobacco's all cut now, and the dogs are in
+capital order--as thin as a lath. You must be with us, of course. We'll
+get up one in pine quarter, and he's sure to run towards the river; so
+you can come in as the hounds pass Shirley."
+
+"I should like to see a fox hunt, certainly, but I have no proper
+horse," said Robert.
+
+"Why, where's Graybeard? Billy told me he had turned him over to you to
+use and abuse."
+
+"So he did, and he is riding his bay at present. But Graybeard is quite
+lame just now."
+
+"Ride the bay then. Billy will be back from court to-night, won't he?"
+
+"Yes; but he will want to join in the chase, I suppose."
+
+"I reckon he will, but he can ride something else. He don't often care
+to take the tail, and he can see as much as he likes on one of his
+'conestogas.' I'll tell you what you can do. Winger's got a splendid
+colt, pretty well broken, and you can get him for a dollar or two if you
+a'n't afraid to ride him. You must manage it somehow, so as to be 'in at
+the death!' I want you to see some riding."
+
+Mr. Robert promised to see what he could do. He greatly wanted to ride
+after the hounds for once at least, though it must be confessed he would
+have been better pleased had the hounds to be ridden after belonged to
+somebody else besides the gentleman familiarly known as "Foggy," a
+personage for whom Mr. Robert had certainly not conceived a very great
+liking. That the reader may know whether his prejudice was a
+well-founded one or not it will be necessary for me to go back a little
+and gather up some of the loose threads of my story, while our young man
+is on his way to The Oaks. I have been so deeply interested in the
+ripening acquaintanceship between Mr. Rob and Miss Sudie that I have
+neglected to introduce some other personages, less agreeable perhaps,
+but not less important to the proper understanding of this history.
+Leaving young Pagebrook on the road, therefore, let me tell the reader,
+in a new chapter, something about the people he had met outside the
+hospitable Shirley mansion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+_Chiefly Concerning "Foggy."_
+
+
+Dr. Charles Harrison was a young man of twenty-five or six, a distant
+relative of the Barksdales--so distant indeed that he would never have
+known himself as a relative at all, if he and they had not been
+Virginians. He was a young man of good parts, fond of field sports,
+reasonably well behaved in all external matters, but without any very
+fixed moral principles. He was a gentleman, in the strict Virginian
+sense of the term. That is to say he was of a good family, was well
+educated, and had never done anything to disgrace himself; wherefore he
+was received in all gentlemen's houses as an equal. He drank a little
+too freely on occasion, and played bluff and loo a trifle too often, the
+elderly people thought; but these things, it was commonly supposed, were
+only youthful follies. He would grow out of them--marry and settle down
+after awhile. He was on the whole a very agreeable person to be with,
+and very much of a gentleman in his manner.
+
+"Foggy" Raves was an anomaly. His precise position in the social scale
+was a very difficult thing to discover, and is still more difficult to
+define. His father had been an overseer, and so "Foggy" was certainly
+not a "gentleman." Other men of parentage similar to his knew their
+places, and when business made it necessary for them to visit the house
+of a gentleman they expected to be received in the porch if the weather
+were tolerable, and in the dining-room if it were not. They never
+dreamed of being taken into the parlor, introduced to the family, or
+invited to dinner. All these things were well recognized customs; the
+line of demarkation between "gentlemen" and "common people" was very
+sharply drawn indeed. The two classes lived on excellent terms with each
+other, but they never mixed. The gentleman was always courteous to the
+common people out of respect for himself; while the common people were
+very deferential to every gentleman as a matter of duty. Now this man
+Raves was not a "gentleman." That much was clear. And yet, for some
+inscrutable reason, his position among the people who knew him was not
+exactly that of a common man. He was never invited into gentlemen's
+houses precisely as a gentleman would have been, it is true; and yet
+into gentlemen's houses he very often went, and that upon invitation
+too. When young men happened to be keeping bachelors' establishments,
+either temporarily or permanently, "Foggy" was sure to be invited pretty
+frequently to see them. As long as there were no ladies at home "Foggy"
+knew himself welcome, and he had played whist and loo and bluff in many
+genteel parlors, into which he never thought of going when there were
+ladies on the plantation. He kept a fine pack of hounds too, and was
+clearly at the head of the "fox-hunting interest" of the county; and
+this was an anomaly also, as fox-hunting is an eminently aristocratic
+sport, in which gentlemen engage only in company with gentlemen--except
+in "Foggy's" case.
+
+[Illustration: "FOGGY."]
+
+Precisely what "Foggy's" business was it is difficult to say. He was
+constable, for one thing, and _ex-officio_ county jailor. One half the
+jail building was fitted up as his residence, and there he lived, a
+bachelor some fifty years old. He hired out horses and buggies in a
+small way now and then, but his earnings were principally made at
+"bluff" and "loo." Once or twice Colonel Barksdale and some other
+gentlemen had tried to oust "Foggy" from the jail, believing that his
+establishment there was ruining a good many of the young men, as it
+certainly was. Failing in this they had him indicted for gambling in a
+public place, but the prosecution failed, the court holding that the
+jailor's private rooms in the jail could not be called a public place,
+though all rooms in a hotel had been held public within the meaning of
+the statute.
+
+This man's Christian name was not "Foggy," of course, though hardly
+anybody knew what it really was. He had won his sobriquet in early life
+by paying the professional gambler, Daniel K. Foggy, to teach him "how
+to beat roulette," and then winning his money back by putting his
+purchased knowledge to the proof at Daniel's own roulette table.
+Everybody agreed that "Foggy" was a good fellow. He would go far out of
+his way to oblige anybody, and, as was pretty generally agreed, had a
+good many of the instincts of a gentleman. He was not a professional
+gambler at all. He never kept a faro bank. He played cards merely for
+amusement, he said, and there was a popular tendency to believe his
+statement. The betting was simply to "make it interesting," and
+sometimes the play did grow very "interesting" indeed--interesting to
+the extent of several hundred dollars frequently.
+
+Now only about a week before the morning on which Mr. Robert met Dr.
+Harrison, he had gone to the Court House for the purpose of calling upon
+the doctor. While there young Harrison had proposed that they go up to
+Foggy's, explaining that Foggy was "quite a character, whom you ought to
+know; not a gentleman, of course, but a good fellow as ever lived."
+
+Upon going to Foggy's, Robert had found his cousin Ewing Pagebrook there
+playing cards. The boy--for he was not yet of age--was flushed and
+excited, and Robert saw at a glance that he had been losing heavily. On
+Robert's entrance he threw down his cards and declared himself tired of
+play.
+
+"I'll arrange that, Foggy," said the boy, with a nod.
+
+"O any time will do!" replied the other. "How d'ye do, Charley? Come
+in."
+
+Dr. Charley introduced Robert, and the latter, barely recognizing
+Foggy's greeting, turned to Ewing and asked:
+
+"What have you been doing, Ewing? Not gambling, I hope."
+
+"O no! certainly not," said Foggy; "only a little game of draw-poker,
+ten cents ante."
+
+"Well, but how much have you lost, Ewing?" asked Robert. "How much more
+than you can pay in cash, I mean? I see you haven't settled the score."
+
+Ewing was inclined to resent his cousin's questioning, but his rather
+weak head was by no means a match for his cousin's strong one. This
+great hulking Robert Pagebrook was "big all over," Billy Barksdale had
+said. His will was law to most men when he chose to assert it strongly.
+He now took his cousin in hand, and made him confess to a debt of fifty
+dollars to the gambler. Then turning to Foggy he said:
+
+"Mr. Raves, you have won all of this young man's money and fifty dollars
+more, it appears. Now, as I understand the matter, this fifty dollars is
+'a debt of honor,' in gambling parlance, and so it must be paid. But you
+must acknowledge that you are more than a match for a mere boy, and you
+ought to 'give him odds.' I believe that is the correct phrase, is it
+not?"
+
+"Yes, that's right; but how can you give odds in draw-poker?"
+
+"I am going to show you, though I am certainly not acquainted with the
+mysteries of that game. You and he think he owes you fifty dollars. Now
+my opinion is that he owes you nothing, while you owe him the precise
+amount of cash you have won from him; and I propose to effect a
+compromise. The law of Virginia is pretty stringent, I believe, on the
+subject of gambling with people under age, and if I were disposed I
+could give you some trouble on that score. But I propose instead to pay
+you ten dollars--just enough to make a receipt worth while--and to take
+your receipt in full for the amount due. I shall then take my cousin
+home, and he can pay me at his leisure. Is that satisfactory, sir?"
+
+Mr. Robert was in a towering rage, though his manner was as quiet as it
+is possible to conceive, and his voice was as soft and smooth as a
+woman's. Had Foggy been disposed to presume upon his antagonist's
+apparent calmness and to play the bully, he would unquestionably have
+got himself into trouble of a physical sort there and then. To speak
+plainly, Robert Pagebrook was quite prepared to punish the gambler with
+his fists, and would undoubtedly have made short work of it had Foggy
+provoked him with a word. But Foggy never quarreled. He knew his
+business too well for that. He never gave himself airs with gentlemen.
+He knew his place too well. He never got himself involved in any kind of
+disturbance which would attract attention to himself. He knew the
+consequences too well. He was always quiet, always deferential, always
+satisfied; and so, while he had no reason to anticipate the thrashing
+which Robert Pagebrook was aching to give him, he nevertheless was as
+complacent as possible in his reply to that gentleman.
+
+"Why certainly, Mr. Pagebrook. I never meant to take the money at all. I
+only wanted to frighten our young friend here, and teach him a lesson.
+He thinks he can play cards when he can't, and I wanted to 'break him of
+sucking eggs,' that's all. I meant to let him think he had to pay me so
+as to scare him, for I feel an interest in Ewing. 'Pon my word I do. Now
+let me tell you, Ewing, we'll call this square, and you mustn't play no
+more. You play honest now, but if you keep on you'll cheat a little
+after awhile, and when a man cheats at cards, Ewing, he'll steal. Mind,
+I speak from experience, for I've seen a good deal of this thing. Come,
+Charley, you and Mr. Pagebrook, let's take something. I've got some
+splendid Shield's whisky."
+
+Mr. Pagebrook summoned sufficient courtesy to decline the alcoholic
+hospitality without rudeness, and, with his cousin, took his leave.
+
+Ewing entreated Robert to keep the secret he had thus stumbled upon, and
+Robert promised to do so upon the express condition that Ewing would
+wholly refrain from playing cards for money in future. This the youth
+promised to do, and our friend Robert congratulated himself upon his
+success in saving his well-meaning but rather weak-headed cousin from
+certain ruin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Rides._
+
+
+In view of the circumstances detailed in the preceding chapter, it was
+quite natural that Robert Pagebrook should feel some annoyance when he
+learned from young Harrison that his cousin had again fallen into the
+hands of Foggy Raves. And he did feel annoyance, and a good deal of it,
+as he resumed his walk toward The Oaks. Aside from his interest in his
+cousin, Robert disliked to be beaten at anything, and to find that the
+gambler had fairly beaten him in his fight for the salvation of Ewing
+was anything but agreeable to him. Then again his cousin had shown
+himself miserably weak of moral purpose, and weaknesses were always
+unpleasant things for Robert Pagebrook to contemplate. He had no
+sympathy with irresolution of any sort, and no patience with unstable
+moral knees. He was half angry and wholly grieved, therefore, when he
+heard of Ewing's violation of his promise. His first impulse was to go
+before the next grand jury and secure Foggy's indictment for gambling
+with a minor, but a maturer reflection convinced him that while this
+would be an agreeable thing to do under the circumstances, it would be
+an unwise one as well. To expose Ewing was to ruin him hopelessly,
+Robert felt, knowing as he did that reformation in the face of public
+disgrace requires a good deal more of moral stamina than Ewing Pagebrook
+ever had. Precisely what to do Robert did not know. He would talk with
+Cousin Sudie about the matter, and see what she thought was best. Her
+judgment, he had discovered, was particularly good, and it might help
+him to a determination.
+
+This thinking of Cousin Sudie brought back to his mind Phil's hint as to
+the purpose of Dr. Harrison's visit, and his face burned as the
+conviction came to him that this man might be Cousin Sudie's accepted or
+acceptable lover. He knew well enough that Harrison called frequently at
+Shirley; but surely Cousin Sudie would have mentioned the man often in
+conversation if he had been largely in her mind. Would she though? This
+was a second thought. Was not her silence, on the contrary, rather an
+indication that she did think of the man? If she recognized him as a
+lover, would she not certainly avoid all unnecessary mention of his
+name? Was not Phil likely to be pretty well informed in the case? All
+these things ran rapidly through his perturbed mind. But why should he
+worry himself over a matter that in no way concerned him? _He_ was not
+interested in Cousin Sudie except as a friend. Of course not. Was not
+his heart still sore from its suffering at the hands of Miss Nellie
+Currier? No; upon the whole he was forced to confess that it was not. In
+truth he had not thought of that young lady for at least a fortnight;
+and now that he did think of her he could not possibly understand how
+or why he had ever cared for her at all. But he was not in love with
+Cousin Sudie. Of that he was certain. And yet he could not avoid a
+feeling of very decided annoyance at the thought suggested by Phil's
+remark. He knew young Harrison very slightly, but he was accustomed to
+take men's measures pretty promptly, and he was not at all satisfied
+with this one as a suitor for Cousin Sudie. He knew that Foggy was the
+young physician's pretty constant associate. He knew that Harrison drank
+at times to excess, and he felt that he was not over scrupulous upon
+nice points of morality. In short, our young man was in a fair way to
+work himself into a very pretty indignation when he met Maj. Pagebrook's
+overseer, Winger. A negotiation immediately ensued, ending in an
+agreement that Robert should ride the black colt so long as Graybeard's
+lameness should continue, paying Winger a moderate hire for the animal.
+
+The bargain concluded, Winger dismounted and Robert took his place on
+the colt's back, borrowing Winger's saddle until his return to Shirley
+in the evening.
+
+Horseback exercise is a curious thing, certainly, in some of its
+effects. When Robert was afoot that morning several things had combined,
+as we have seen, to make him gloomy, despondent, and generally out of
+sorts. Ewing's backsliding had annoyed him, and the possibility or
+probability of Phil's accuracy of information and judgment in the matter
+of Cousin Sudie and Dr. Harrison had depressed him sorely. When he found
+himself on the back of this magnificent colt, whose delight it was to
+carry a strong, fearless rider, he fell immediately into hearty sympathy
+with the high spirits and bounding pulses of the animal. He struck out
+into a gallop, and in an instant felt himself in a far brighter world
+than that which he had been traversing ten minutes since. His spirits
+rose. His hopefulness returned. The world became better and the future
+more promising. Mr. Robert Pagebrook felt the unreasonable but
+thoroughly delightful exhilaration to which Billy Barksdale referred
+when he said, "Bob is the happiest fellow in the world; he gets glad
+sometimes just because he is alive." That was precisely the state of
+affairs. Mr. Robert on this high-mettled horse was superlatively alive,
+and was glad because of it. There is more of joy than many people know
+in the mere act of living; but it is only they who have clear
+consciences, springy muscles, and perfect health of both mind and body
+who fully share this joy. Robert Pagebrook had all of these, and was
+astride a perfect horse to boot; and that, as all horsemen know, is an
+important element in the matter.
+
+He galloped on toward The Oaks, leaving his troubles just where he
+mounted his horse. He forgot Ewing's apostasy; he forgot Dr. Harrison,
+but he remembered Cousin Sudie, and that right pleasantly too. Naturally
+enough, being on horseback, he projected himself into the future, which
+is always a bright world when one is galloping toward it. He would
+heartily enjoy the coming fox-chase--particularly on such an animal as
+that now under him. Then his thoughts pushed themselves still further
+forward, and he dreamed dreams. His full professorship would pay him a
+salary sufficient to justify him in setting up a little establishment of
+his own, and he should then know what it was to have a home in which
+there should be love and purity and peace and domestic comfort. The
+woman who was to form the center of all this bliss was vaguely undefined
+as to identity and other details. She existed only in outline, in the
+picture, but that outline strikingly resembled the young woman who
+carried the key-basket at Shirley--an accidental resemblance, of course,
+for Mr. Robert Pagebrook was positive that he was not in love with
+Cousin Sudie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Dines with his Cousin Sarah Ann._
+
+
+How largely Mr. Robert's high spirits were the result of rapid riding on
+a good horse, and how far other causes aided in producing them, I am
+wholly unprepared to say. Whatever their cause was they were not
+destined to last long after he dismounted at The Oaks. Indeed his day at
+that country seat was not at all an agreeable one. His cousin Sarah Ann
+was a rather depressing person to be with at any time, and there were
+circumstances which made her especially so on this particular occasion.
+Cousin Sarah Ann had a chronic habit of being ostentatiously sorry for
+herself, which was very disagreeable to a healthy young man like Robert.
+She nursed and cherished her griefs as if they had been her children,
+and like children they grew under the process. She had several times
+told Robert how lonely she was since the death of her mother, three
+years before, and with tears in her eyes she had complained that there
+was nobody to love her now that poor mother was gone--a statement which
+right-thinking and logical Robert felt himself almost guilty in hearing
+from a woman with a husband and a house full of children. She
+complained a good deal of her poverty, too, a complaining which shocked
+this truthful young man, knowing, as he did, that his cousin Edwin was
+one of the wealthiest men in the country round about, with a good
+plantation at home, a very large and profitable one in Mississippi,
+twenty or thirty business buildings, well leased, in Richmond, a surplus
+of money in bank, and no debts whatever, which last circumstance served
+to make him almost a curiosity in a state in which it was hardly
+respectable to owe no money. She complained, too, that her boys were
+dull and her girls not pretty, both of which complaints were very well
+founded indeed. When Robert on his first visit said something in praise
+of her comfortable and really pretty house, she replied:
+
+"Oh! I can't pretend to live in an aristocratic house like your Aunt
+Mary's. I didn't inherit a 'family mansion' you know, and so we had to
+build this house. It hasn't a bit of wainscoting, you see, and no old
+pictures. I reckon I a'n't as good as you Pagebrooks, and somehow my
+husband a'n't as aristocratic as the rest of you. I reckon he's only a
+half-blood Pagebrook, and that's why he condescended to marry poor me."
+
+This was Cousin Sarah Ann's favorite way of speaking of herself, and she
+said "poor me" with a degree of pathos in her tone which always brought
+tears to her eyes.
+
+On the present occasion, as I have said, there were circumstances which
+enabled this estimable lady to make herself unusually disagreeable. She
+had a fresh affliction, and so she reveled in an ecstasy of woe. It was
+her ambition in life to be exceptionally miserable, and accordingly she
+welcomed sorrow with a keenness of relish which few people can possibly
+know. She wouldn't be happy in heaven, Billy Barksdale said, unless she
+could convince people there that she was snubbed by the saints and put
+upon by the angels.
+
+When Robert arrived at The Oaks that morning Major Pagebrook met him at
+the gate, according to custom, but without his customary cheerfulness of
+countenance. He offered no explanation, however, and Robert asked no
+questions. The two went into the parlor, Robert catching sight of Ewing
+in the orchard back of the house, but having no opportunity to speak to
+the young man.
+
+Robert had not been in the parlor many minutes before Major Pagebrook
+went out and Cousin Sarah Ann entered and greeted him with her
+handkerchief to her eyes. She made one or two ostentatious efforts to
+control herself, and then ostentatiously burst into tears.
+
+[Illustration: COUSIN SARAH ANN.]
+
+"Oh! Cousin Robert, I didn't mean to betray myself this way. But I'm so
+miserable. Ewing has been led away again by that man, Foggy Raves."
+
+"I am heartily sorry to know it, Cousin Sarah Ann," replied Robert. "Did
+he lose much?"
+
+"O Ewing never gambles! I don't mean that. Thank heaven my boy never
+plays cards, except with small stakes for amusement. But he went over to
+the Court House last night to stay with Charley Harrison, and they went
+up to Foggy's and they drank a little too much. And now Cousin Edwin
+(Mrs. Pagebrook always called her husband Cousin Edwin) is terribly
+angry about it and has scolded the poor boy cruelly, cruelly. He even
+threatened to cut him off with nothing at all in his will, and leave the
+poor boy to starve. Men are so hard-hearted! The idea that I should live
+to hear my boy talked to in that way, and by his own father too, almost
+kills me. Poor me! there's nobody to love me now."
+
+"Tell me, Cousin Sarah Ann," said Robert, "for I am deeply concerned in
+Ewing's behalf, and I mean to reform him if I can--does he often get
+drunk?"
+
+"Get drunk! My boy never gets drunk! You talk just like Cousin Edwin. He
+only drinks a little, as all young gentlemen do, and if he drinks too
+much now and then I'm sure it isn't so very dreadful as you all make it
+out. I don't see why the poor boy must be kept down all the time and
+scolded and scolded and talked about, just because he does like other
+people; and that's what distresses me. Cousin Edwin scolds Ewing, and
+then scolds me for taking the poor boy's part, and it's more than I can
+bear. And now you talk about 'reforming' him!"
+
+Robert explained that he had misunderstood the cause of Cousin Sarah
+Ann's grief, but he thought it would be something worse than useless to
+tell her that she was ruining the boy, as he saw clearly enough that she
+was. He turned the conversation, therefore, and Cousin Sarah Ann
+speedily dried her eyes.
+
+"You're riding Mr. Winger's horse, I see. What's become of Graybeard?"
+she asked, after a little time.
+
+"He is a little lame just now. Nothing serious, but I thought I would
+hire Winger's colt until he gets well."
+
+"Ah! I understand. The rides soon in the morning must not be given up
+on any terms. But you'd better look out, Cousin Robert. I'm sorry for
+you if you lose your heart there."
+
+"Why, Cousin Sarah Ann, what do you mean? I really am not sure that I
+understand you."
+
+"Oh! I say nothing; but those rides every morning and all that
+housekeeping that I've heard about, are dangerous things, cousin. I was
+a belle once myself."
+
+It was one of Cousin Sarah Ann's favorite theories that she knew all
+about bellehood, having been a belle herself--though nobody else ever
+knew anything about that particular part of her career.
+
+"Well, Cousin Sarah Ann, I do not think I have lost my heart, as you
+phrase it; but pray tell me why you should be sorry for me if I had?"
+
+Mr. Robert was at first about to declare positively that he had not
+fallen in love with Cousin Sudie, but just at that moment it occurred to
+him that he might possibly be mistaken about the matter, and being
+thoroughly truthful he chose the less positive form of denial,
+supplementing it, as we have seen, with a question.
+
+"Well, for several reasons," replied Cousin Sarah Ann: "they do say that
+Charley Harrison is before you there, and anyhow, it would never do.
+Sudie hasn't got much, you know. Her father didn't leave her anything
+but a few hundred dollars, and that's all spent long ago, on her clothes
+and schooling."
+
+Mr. Robert Pagebrook certainly did not wish ill to Cousin Sudie, and yet
+he was heartily though illogically glad when he learned that that young
+lady was poor. The feeling surprised him, but he had no time in which
+to analyze it just then.
+
+"Why, Cousin Sarah Ann, you certainly do not think me so mercenary as
+your remark would seem to indicate?"
+
+"Oh! it's well enough to talk about not being mercenary, but I can tell
+you that some money on one side or the other is very convenient. I know
+by experience what it is to be poor. I might have married rich if I'd
+wanted to, but I had lofty notions like you."
+
+The reader will please remember that I am no more responsible for Mrs.
+Pagebrook's syntax than for her sins.
+
+"But, Cousin Sarah Ann," said Robert, "you would not wish one to marry a
+young woman's money or lands, would you?"
+
+"That's only your romantic way of putting it. I don't see why you can't
+love a rich girl as well as a poor one, for my part. If you had plenty
+of money yourself it wouldn't matter; but as it is you ought to marry so
+as to hang up your hat."
+
+"I confess I do not exactly understand your figure of speech, Cousin
+Sarah Ann! What do you mean by hanging up my hat?"
+
+"Didn't you ever hear that before? It's a common saying here, when a man
+marries a girl with a good plantation and a 'dead daddy,' so there can't
+be any doubt about the land being her's--they say he's got nothing to do
+but walk in and hang up his hat."
+
+This explanation was lucid enough without doubt, but it, and indeed the
+entire conversation, was extremely disagreeable to Robert, who was
+sufficiently old-fashioned to think that marriage was a holy thing, and
+he, being a man of good taste, disliked to hear holy things lightly
+spoken of. He was relieved, therefore, by Maj. Pagebrook's entrance, and
+not long afterwards he was invited to go up to the blue-room, the way to
+which he knew perfectly well, to rest awhile before dinner.
+
+In the blue-room he found Ewing, with a headache, lying on a lounge. The
+youth had purposely gone thither, probably, in order that his meeting
+with Robert might be a private one, for meet him he must, as he very
+well knew, at dinner if not before.
+
+Robert sat down by him and held his head as tenderly as a woman could
+have done, and speaking gently said:
+
+"I am very sorry to find you suffering, Ewing. You must ride with me
+after dinner, and the air will relieve your head, I hope."
+
+The boy actually burst into tears, and presently, recovering from the
+paroxysm, said:
+
+"I didn't expect that, Cousin Robert. Those are the first kind words
+I've heard to-day. Mother has called me hard names all the morning."
+
+"Your _mother_!" exclaimed Robert, thrown off his guard by surprise, for
+he would never have thought of questioning the boy on such a subject.
+
+"O yes! she always does. If she'd ever give me any credit when I do try
+to do right, I reckon I would try harder. But she calls me a drunkard
+and gambler whenever there is the least excuse for it; and if I don't do
+anything wrong she says I am pokey and a'n't got any spirit. She told me
+this morning she didn't mean to leave me anything in her will, because
+I'd squander it. You know all pa's property is in her name now. I got
+mad at last and told her I knew she couldn't keep me from getting my
+share, because nearly half of everything here belonged to Grandfather
+Taylor and is willed to us children when we come of age. She didn't know
+I knew that, and when I told her----"
+
+"Come, Ewing, don't talk about that. You have no right to tell me such
+things. Bathe your head now, and hold it up as a man should. You are
+responsible to yourself for yourself, and it is your duty to make a man
+of yourself--such a man as you need not be ashamed of. If you think you
+do not receive the recognition you ought for your efforts to do well,
+you should remember that things are not perfectly adjusted in this
+world, so far at least as we can understand them. The reward of
+manliness is the manliness itself; and it is well worth living for too,
+even though nobody recognizes its existence but yourself. Of that,
+however, there need be no fear. People will know you, sooner or later,
+precisely as you are."
+
+Robert had other encouraging things to say to the youth, and finally
+said:
+
+"Now, Ewing, I shall ask you to make no promises which you may not be
+strong enough to keep; but if you will promise me to make an earnest
+effort to let whisky and cards alone, and to make a man of yourself,
+refusing to be led by other people, I will talk with your father and get
+him to agree never to mention the past again, but to aid you with every
+encouragement in his power for the future."
+
+"Why, Cousin Robert, pa never says anything to me. When ma scolds he
+just goes out of the house, and he don't come in again till he's obliged
+to. It a'n't pa at all, it's ma, and it a'n't any use to talk to her.
+I'll be of age pretty soon, and then I mean to take my share of
+grandpa's estate, and put it into money and go clear away from here."
+
+Robert saw that it would be idle to remonstrate with the young man at
+present, and equally idle to interfere with the domestic governmental
+system practiced by Cousin Sarah Ann. He devoted himself, therefore, to
+the task of getting Ewing to bathe his head; and after a little time the
+two went down to dinner, Ewing thinking Robert the only real friend he
+could claim.
+
+His head aching worse after dinner than before, he declined Robert's
+invitation to go to Shirley, and our friend rode back alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+_Concerning the Rivulets of Blue Blood._
+
+
+Mr. Robert was heartily glad to get away from the uncomfortable presence
+of Cousin Sarah Ann, and yet it can not be said that our young gentleman
+was buoyant of spirit as he rode from The Oaks to Shirley. Ewing's case
+had depressed him, and Cousin Sarah Ann had depressed him still further.
+His confidence in woman nature was shaken. His ideas on the subject of
+women had been for the most part evolved--wrought out, _a priori_, from
+his mother as a premise. He had known all the time that not every woman
+was his mother's equal, if indeed any woman was; he had observed that
+sometimes vanity and weakness and in one case, as we know, faithlessness
+entered into the composition of women, but he had never conceived of
+such a compound of "envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness"
+as his cousin Sarah Ann certainly was; and as he applied the quotation
+mentally he was constrained also to utter the petition which accompanies
+it in the litany--"Good Lord deliver us!" This woman was a mystery to
+him. She not only shocked but she puzzled him. How anybody could
+consent to be just such a person as she was was wholly incomprehensible.
+Her departures from the right line of true womanhood were so entirely
+purposeless that he could trace them to no logical starting-point. He
+could conceive of no possible training or experience which ought to
+result in such a character as hers.
+
+[Illustration: THE RIVULETS OF BLUE BLOOD.]
+
+After puzzling himself over this human problem for half an hour he gave
+it up, and straightway began to work at another. He asked himself how it
+could be possible that Cousin Sudie should be attracted by Dr. Charley
+Harrison. Possibly the reader has had occasion to work at a similar
+problem in his time, and if so I need not tell him how incapable it
+proved of solution. Of the fact Robert was now convinced, and the fact
+annoyed him. It annoyed him too that he could not account for the fact;
+and then it annoyed him still more to know that he could be annoyed at
+all in the case, for he was perfectly sure--or nearly so--that he was
+not himself in love with his little friend at Shirley. And yet he felt a
+strange yearning to battle in some way with young Harrison, and to
+conquer him. He wanted to beat the man at something, it mattered little
+what, and to triumph over him. But he did not allow himself even
+mentally to formulate this feeling. If he had he would have discovered
+its injustice, and cast it from him as unworthy. His instinct warned him
+of this, and so he refused to put his wish into form lest he should
+thereby lose the opportunity of entertaining it.
+
+With thoughts like these the young man rode homewards, and naturally
+enough he was not in the best of humors when he sat down in the parlor
+at Shirley.
+
+The conversation, in some inscrutable way, turned upon Cousin Sarah Ann,
+and Robert so far forgot himself as to express pleasure in the thought
+that that lady was in no way akin to himself.
+
+"But she is kin to you, Robert," said Aunt Catherine.
+
+"How can that be, Aunt Catherine?" asked the young gentleman.
+
+"Show him with the keys, Aunt Catherine, show him with the keys," said
+Billy, who had returned from court that day. "Come, Sudie, where's your
+basket? I want to see if Aunt Catherine can't muddle Bob's head as badly
+as she does mine sometimes. Here are the keys. Explain it to him, Aunt
+Catherine, and if he knows when you get through whether he is his great
+grandfather's nephew or his uncle's son once removed, I'll buy his skull
+for tissue paper at once. A skull that can let key-basket genealogy
+through it a'n't thick enough to grow hair on."
+
+The task was one that the old lady loved, and so without paying the
+slightest attention to Billy's bantering she began at once to arrange
+the keys from Sudie's basket upon the floor in the shape of a
+complicated genealogical table. "Now my child," said she, pointing to
+the great key at top, "the smoke-house key is your great great
+grandmother, who was a Pembroke. The Pembrokes were always
+considered----"
+
+"Always considered smoke-house keys--remember, Bob."
+
+"Will you keep still, William? The Pembrokes were always considered an
+excellent family. Now your great great grandmother, Matilda Pembroke,
+married John Pemberton, and had two sons and one daughter, as you see.
+The oldest son, Charles, had six daughters, and his third daughter
+married your grandfather Pagebrook, so she was your grandmother--the
+store-room key, you see----"
+
+"See, Bob, what it is to be well connected," said Billy; "your own dear
+grandmother was a store-room key."
+
+"Hush, Billy, you confuse Robert."
+
+"Ah! do I? I only wanted him to remember who his grandmother was."
+
+"Well," said the old lady, "Matilda Pemberton's daughter, your great
+grand aunt, married a man of no family--a carpenter or something--the
+corn-house key there."
+
+"There it is, Bob. A'n't you glad you descended from a respectable
+smoke-house key, through an aristocratic store-room key, instead of
+having a plebeian corn-house key in the way? There's nothing like blue
+blood, I tell you, and ours is as blue as an indigo bag; a'n't it, Aunt
+Catherine?"
+
+"Will you never learn, Billy, not to make fun of your ancestors? I have
+explained to you a hundred times how much there is in family. Now don't
+interrupt me again. Let me see, where was I? O yes! Your great grand
+aunt married a carpenter, and his daughter Sarah was your second cousin
+if you count removes, fourth cousin if you don't. Now Sarah was your
+Cousin Sarah Ann's grandmother, as you see; so Sarah Ann is your third
+cousin if you count removes, and your sixth cousin if you don't. Do you
+understand it now?"
+
+"Of course he does," said Billy; "but I must break up the family now, as
+I see Polidore's waiting for the madam's great grandfather, to wit, the
+corn-house key. Come Bob, let's go up to the stable and see the horses
+fed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Manages to be in at the Death._
+
+
+Not many days after Robert's uncomfortable dinner at The Oaks, a servant
+came over with a message from Major Pagebrook, to the effect that a
+grand fox-chase was arranged for the next morning. Foggy and Dr.
+Harrison had originated it, but Major Pagebrook's and several other
+gentlemen's hounds would run, and Ewing invited his cousins, Robert and
+Billy, to take part in the sport. Accordingly our two young gentlemen
+ate an early breakfast and rode over to that part of The Oaks plantation
+known as "Pine quarter," where the first fox-hunt of the season was
+always begun. They arrived not a moment too soon, and found the hounds
+just breaking away and the riders galloping after them. The first five
+miles of country was comparatively open, a fact which gave the fox a
+good start and promised to make the chase a long and a rapid one.
+
+Robert Pagebrook had never seen a fox-chase, and his only knowledge of
+the sport was that which he had gleaned from descriptions, but he was on
+a perfect horse as inexperienced as himself; he was naturally very
+fearless; he was intensely excited, and it was his habit to do whatever
+he believed to be the proper thing on any occasion. From books he had
+got the impression that the proper thing to do in fox-hunting was to
+ride as hard as he could straight after the hounds, and this he did with
+very little regard for consequences. He galloped straight through clumps
+of pine, "as thick," Billy said, "as the hair on Absalom's head," while
+others rode around them. He plunged through creek "low grounds" without
+a thought of possible mires or quicksands. He knew that fox-hunters made
+their horses jump fences, but he knew nothing of their practice in the
+matter of knocking off top rails first, and accordingly he rode straight
+at every fence which happened to stand in his way, and forced his horse
+to take them all at a flying leap.
+
+On and on he went, straight after the hounds, his pulse beating high and
+his brain whirling with excitement. The more judicious hunters of the
+party would have been left far behind but for the advantage they
+possessed in their knowledge of the country and their consequent ability
+to anticipate the fox's turnings, and to save distance and avoid
+difficulties by following short cuts. Robert rode right after the hounds
+always.
+
+"That cousin of yours is crazy," said one gentleman to Billy; "but what
+a magnificent rider he is."
+
+"Why don't you stop your cousin?" asked another, "he'll kill himself, to
+a certainty, if you don't."
+
+"O I will!" replied Billy, "and I'll remonstrate with all the streaks of
+lightning I happen to overtake, too. I'm sure to catch a good many of
+them before I come up with him."
+
+The fox "doubled" very little now, and it became evident that he was
+making for the Appomattox River, but whether he would cross it or double
+and run back was uncertain. Billy earnestly hoped he would double, as
+that might enable him to see Robert and check his mad riding, if indeed
+that gentleman should manage to reach the river with an unbroken neck.
+
+On and on they went, fox running for dear life, hounds in perfect trim
+and full cry, and riders each bent upon "taking the tail" if possible.
+Robert remained in advance of all the rest, jumping every fence over
+which he could force his horse, and making the animal knock down those
+which he could not leap. His horse blundered at a ditch once and fell,
+but recovered himself with his rider still erect in the saddle, before
+anybody had time to wonder whether his neck was broken or not. Billy now
+saw a new danger ahead of his cousin. They were nearing the river, and
+the fox, an old red one, who knew his business, was evidently running
+for a crossing place where mire and quicksands abounded. Of this Robert
+knew nothing, and after his performances thus far there was no reason to
+hope that any late-coming caution would save him now. A thicket of young
+oaks lay just ahead, and the hounds going through it Robert followed
+quite as a matter of course. Billy saw here his chance, and putting
+spurs to his horse he rode at full speed around the end of the thicket,
+hoping to reach the other side in time to intercept his cousin, in whose
+behalf he was now really alarmed. As he swept by the end of the
+thicket, however, he passed two gentlemen whom he could not see through
+the bushes, but whose voices he knew very well. They were none other
+than Mr. Foggy Raves and Dr. Charles Harrison, and Billy heard what they
+were saying.
+
+"You _must_ take the tail, Charley, and not let that city snob get it.
+The fool rides like Death on the pale horse, and don't seem to know
+there ever was a fence too high to jump. He'd try to take the Blue Ridge
+at a flying leap if it got in his way. I'd rather kill a dozen horses
+than let him beat us. He put his finger into our little game with that
+saphead Ewing, and----"
+
+"But my horse is thumped now, Foggy."
+
+"Well, take mine then. He's fresh. I sent him over last night to meet me
+here, and I just now changed. I've hurt my knee and can't ride. Take, my
+horse and ride him to death but what you beat that----"
+
+This was all that Billy had time to hear, but it was enough to change
+his entire purpose. He no longer thought of Robert's neck, but hurried
+on for the sole purpose of spurring his cousin up to new exertion. He
+reached the edge of the thicket just as Robert came out bare-headed,
+having lost his hat in the brush. His face was bleeding, too, from
+scratches and bruises received in the struggle through the oak thicket.
+The river was just ahead, but the fox doubled to the right instead of
+crossing.
+
+"Come, Bob," said Billy, "you've got to take the tail to-day or die.
+Foggy and Charley Harrison have been setting up a game on you, and
+Charley has a fresh horse, borrowed from Foggy on purpose to beat you.
+But this double gives you a quarter start of him. Don't _run_ your horse
+up hills, or you'll blow him out, and shy off from such thickets as
+that. You can ride round quicker than you can go through. _Don't break
+your_ NECK, BUT TAKE THE TAIL ANYHOW."
+
+He fairly yelled the last words at Robert, who was already a hundred
+yards ahead of him and getting further off every second.
+
+The effect of his words on his cousin was not precisely what might have
+been expected. Before this Robert had been intensely excited and had
+enjoyed being so, but his excitement had been the result of his high
+spirits and his keen zest for the sport in which he was engaged. He had
+astonished everybody by the utter recklessness of his riding, but had
+not shared at all in their astonishment or known that his riding was
+reckless. He had ridden hard simply because he thought that the proper
+thing to do and because he enjoyed doing it. He rode now for victory.
+His features lost the look of wild enjoyment which they had worn, and
+settled themselves into a firm, hard expression of dogged determination.
+Here was his opportunity to do battle with young Harrison; and from
+Billy's manner, rather than from his words, he knew that the contest was
+not one of generous rivalry on Harrison's part. He felt that there was a
+contemptuous sneer somewhere back of Billy's words, and the thought
+nettled him sorely. But he did not lose his head in the excitement. On
+the contrary, he felt the necessity now for care and coolness, and
+accordingly he immediately took pains to become both cool and careful.
+He knew that Harrison had an advantage in knowing the country, and he
+resolved to share that advantage. To this end he brought his horse down
+to an easy canter and waited for Harrison to come up. He then kept his
+eye constantly on his rival and used him as a guide. When Harrison
+avoided a thicket he avoided it also. If Harrison left the track of the
+hounds for the sake of cutting off an angle, Robert kept by his side.
+This angered Harrison, who had counted confidently upon having an
+advantage in these matters, and under the influence of his anger he
+spurred his horse unnecessarily and soon took a good deal of his
+freshness out of him.
+
+The two rode on almost side by side for miles. The fox was beginning to
+show his fatigue, and it was evident that the chase would soon end. Both
+the foremost riders discovered this, and both put forth every possible
+exertion to win. Just ahead of them lay a very dense thicket through
+which ran a narrow bridle-path barely wide enough for one horse, as
+Robert knew, for the thicket lay on Shirley plantation, the fox having
+run back almost immediately over his own track. It was evident now that
+"the catch" would occur in the field just beyond this thicket, and it
+was equally evident that as the two could not possibly ride abreast
+along the bridle-path, the one who could first put his horse into it
+would almost certainly be first in at the death. They rode like madmen,
+but Robert's horse was greatly fatigued and Harrison shot ahead of him
+by a single length into the path. There was hardly a chance for Robert
+now, as it was impossible in any case for him to pass his rival in the
+thicket, and he could see that the dogs had already caught the fox in
+the field, less than a rod beyond its edge.
+
+"I've got you now, I reckon," shouted Harrison looking back, but at the
+moment his horse stumbled and fell. Robert could no more stop his own
+horse than he could have stopped a hurricane, and the animal fell
+heavily over Harrison, throwing Robert about ten feet beyond and almost
+among the dogs. Getting up he ran in among the bellowing hounds and,
+catching the fox in his hand, he held him up in full view of the other
+gentlemen, now riding into the field from different directions and
+cheering as lustily as possible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+_Some very Unreasonable Conduct._
+
+
+Quite naturally Robert was elated as he stood there bare-headed, and
+received the congratulations of his companions, who had now come up and
+gathered around him. Loudest among them was Foggy, who leaping from his
+horse cried out:
+
+"By Jove, Mr. Pagebrook, I must shake your hand. I never saw prettier
+riding in my life, and I've seen some good riding too in my time. But
+where's your horse? Did you turn him loose when you jumped off?"
+
+This served to remind Robert of the animal and of Harrison too, and
+going hastily into the thicket he found the Doctor repairing his girth,
+which had been broken in the fall. The Doctor was not hurt, nor was his
+horse injured in any way, but the black colt which had carried Robert so
+gallantly lay dead upon the ground. An examination showed that in
+falling he had broken his neck.
+
+It was not far that our young friend had to walk to reach Shirley, but a
+weariness which he had not felt before crept over him as he walked. His
+head ached sorely, and as the excitement died away it was succeeded by
+a numbness of despondency, the like of which he had never known before.
+He had declined to "ride and tie" with Billy, thinking the task a small
+one to walk through by a woods path to the house, while Billy followed
+the main road. With his first feeling of despondency came bitter
+mortification at the thought that he had allowed so small a thing as a
+fox-chase to so excite him. The exertion had been well enough, but he
+felt that the object in view during the latter half of the chase,
+namely, the defeat of young Harrison, was one wholly unworthy of him,
+and the color came to his cheek as he thought of the energy he had
+wasted on so small an undertaking. Then he remembered the gallant animal
+sacrificed in the blind struggle for mere victory, and he could hardly
+force the tears back as the thought came to him in full force that the
+nostrils which had quivered with excitement so short a time since, would
+snuff the air no more forever. He felt guilty, almost of murder, and
+savagely rejoiced to know that the death of the horse would entail a
+pecuniary loss upon himself, which would in some sense avenge the wrong
+done to the noble brute.
+
+The numbness and weariness oppressed him so that he sat down at the root
+of a tree, and remained there in a state of half unconsciousness until
+Billy came from the house to look for him. Arrived at the house he went
+immediately to bed and into a fever which prostrated him for nearly a
+week, during which time he was not allowed to talk much; in point of
+fact he was not inclined to talk at all, except to Cousin Sudie, who
+moved quietly in and out of the room as occasion required and came to
+sit by his bedside frequently, after Billy and Col. Barksdale quitted
+home again to attend court in another of the adjoining counties, as they
+did as soon as Robert's physician pronounced him out of danger. At first
+Cousin Sudie was disposed to enforce the doctor's orders in regard to
+silence; but she soon discovered, quick-witted girl that she was, that
+_her_ talking soothed and quieted the patient, and so she talked to him
+in a soft, quiet voice, securing, by violating the doctor's injunction,
+precisely the result which the injunction was intended to secure. As
+soon as the fever quitted him Robert began to recover very rapidly, but
+he was greatly troubled about the still unpaid-for horse.
+
+Now he knew perfectly well that Cousin Sudie had no money at command,
+and he ought to have known that it was a very unreasonable proceeding
+upon his part to consult her in the matter. But love laughs at logic as
+well as at locksmiths, and so our logical young man very illogically
+concluded that the best thing to do in the premises was to consult
+Cousin Sudie.
+
+"I am in trouble, Cousin Sudie," said he, as he sat with her in the
+parlor one evening, "about that horse. I know Mr. Winger is a poor man,
+and I ought to pay him at once, but the truth is I have hardly any money
+with me, and there is no bank nearer than Richmond at which to get a
+draft cashed."
+
+"You have money enough, then, somewhere?" asked Cousin Sudie.
+
+"O yes! I have money in bank in Philadelphia, but Winger has already
+sent me a note asking immediate payment, and telling me he is sorely
+pressed for money; and I dislike exceedingly to ask his forbearance even
+for a week, under the circumstances."
+
+"Why can't you get Cousin Edwin to cash a check for you?" asked the
+business-like little woman; "he always has money, and will do it gladly,
+I know."
+
+"That had not occurred to me, but it is a good suggestion. If you will
+lend me your writing-desk I will write and----"
+
+"Ah, there comes Cousin Edwin now, and Ewing too, to see you," said Miss
+Sudie, hearing their voices in the porch.
+
+The visitors came into the parlor, and after a little while Sudie
+withdrew, intent upon some household matter. Ewing followed her. Robert
+spoke frankly of his wish to pay Winger promptly, and asked:
+
+"Can you cash my check on Philadelphia for me, Cousin Edwin, for three
+hundred dollars? Don't think of doing it, pray, if it is not perfectly
+convenient."
+
+"O it isn't inconvenient at all," said Major Pagebrook. "I have more
+money at home than I like to keep there, and I can let you have the
+amount and send your check to the bank in Richmond and have it credited
+to me quite as well as not. In fact I'd rather do it than not, as it'll
+save expressage on money."
+
+Accordingly Robert drew a check for three hundred dollars on his bankers
+in Philadelphia, making it payable to Major Pagebrook, and that
+gentleman undertook to pay the amount that evening to Winger. Shortly
+after this business matter had been settled, Ewing and Miss Sudie
+returned to the parlor and the callers took their departure.
+
+Robert and Sudie sat silent for some time watching the flicker of the
+fire, for the days were cool now and fires were necessary to in-door
+comfort. How long their silence might have continued but for an
+interruption, I do not know; but an interruption came in the breaking of
+the forestick, which had burned in two. A broken reverie may sometimes
+be resumed, but a pair of broken reveries never are. Had Mr. Robert been
+alone he would have rearranged the fire and then sat down to his
+thoughts again. As it was he rearranged the fire and then began to talk
+with Miss Sudie.
+
+"I am glad to get that business off my hands. It worried me," he said.
+
+"So am I," said his companion, "very glad indeed."
+
+There must have been something in her tone, as there was certainly
+nothing in her words, which led Mr. Pagebrook to think that this young
+lady's remark had an unexpressed meaning back of it. He therefore
+questioned her.
+
+"Why, Cousin Sudie? had it been troubling you too?"
+
+"No; but it would have done so, I reckon."
+
+"I do not understand you. Surely you never doubted that I would pay for
+the horse, did you?"
+
+"No indeed, but--"
+
+"What is it Cousin Sudie? tell me what there is in your mind. I shall
+feel hurt if you do not."
+
+"I ought not to tell you, but I must now, or you will imagine
+uncomfortable things. I know why Mr. Winger wrote you that note."
+
+"You know why? There was some reason then besides his need of money?"
+
+"He was not pressed for the money at all. That wasn't the reason."
+
+"You surprise me, Cousin Sudie. Pray tell me what you know, and how."
+
+"Well, promise me first that you won't get yourself into any trouble
+about it--no, I have no right to exact a blind promise--but do don't get
+into trouble. That detestable man, Foggy Raves, made Mr. Winger uneasy
+about the money. He told him you were 'hard up' and couldn't pay if you
+wanted to; and I'm glad you have paid him, and I'm glad you beat Charley
+Harrison in the fox-chase, too."
+
+With this utterly inconsequent conclusion, Cousin Sudie commenced
+rocking violently in her chair.
+
+"How do you know all this, Cousin Sudie?" asked Robert.
+
+"Ewing told me this evening. I'd rather you'd have killed a dozen horses
+than to have had Charley Harrison beat you."
+
+"Why, Cousin Sudie?"
+
+"O he's at the bottom of all this. He always is. Foggy is his
+mouth-piece. And then he told Aunt Catherine, the day you went to The
+Oaks, that he 'meant to have some fun when he got you into a fox-hunt on
+Winger's colt.' He said you'd find out how much your handsome city
+riding-school style was worth when you got on a horse you were afraid
+of. I'm _so_ glad you beat him!"
+
+[Illustration: MISS SUDIE DECLARES HERSELF "SO GLAD."]
+
+Now it would seem that Cousin Sudie's rejoicing must have been of a
+singular sort, as she very unreasonably burst into tears while in the
+very act of declaring herself glad.
+
+Mr. Robert Pagebrook was wholly unused to the task of soothing a woman
+in tears. It was his habit, under all circumstances, to do the thing
+proper to be done, but of what the proper thing was for a man to do or
+say to a woman in tears without apparent cause, Mr. Robert Pagebrook had
+not the faintest conception, and so he very unreasonably proceeded to
+take her hand in his and to tell her that he loved her, a fact which he
+himself just then discovered for the first time.
+
+Before he could add a word to the blunt declaration, Dick thrust his
+black head into the door-way with the announcement, "Supper's ready,
+Miss Sudie."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+_What Occurred Next Morning._
+
+
+The reader thinks, doubtless, that Master Dick's entrance at the precise
+time indicated in the last chapter was an unfortunate occurrence, and I
+presume Mr. Pagebrook was of a like opinion at the moment. But maturer
+reflection convinced him that the interruption was a peculiarly
+opportune one. He was a conscientious young man, and was particularly
+punctilious in matters of honor; wherefore, had he been allowed to
+complete the conversation thus unpremeditatedly begun, without an
+opportunity to deliberate upon the things to be said, he would almost
+certainly have suffered at the hands of his conscience in consequence.
+There were circumstances which made some explanations on his part
+necessary, and he knew perfectly well that these explanations would not
+have been properly made if Master Dick's interruption had not come to
+give him time for reflection.
+
+All this he thought as he drank his tea; for when supper was announced
+both he and Miss Sudie went into the dining-room precisely as if their
+talk in the parlor had been of no unusual character. This they did
+because they were creatures of habit, as you and I and all the rest of
+mankind are. They were in the habit of going to supper when it was
+ready, and it never entered the thought of either to act differently on
+this particular occasion. Miss Sudie, it is true, ran up to her room for
+a moment--to brush her hair I presume--before she entered the
+dining-room, but otherwise they both acted very much as they always did,
+except that Robert addressed almost the whole of his conversation during
+the meal to his Aunt Mary and Aunt Catherine, while Miss Sudie, sitting
+there behind the tea-tray, said nothing at all. After tea the older
+ladies sat with Robert and Sudie in the parlor, until the early bed-time
+prescribed for the convalescent young gentleman arrived.
+
+It thus happened that there was no opportunity for the resumption of the
+interesting conversation interrupted by Dick, until the middle of the
+forenoon next day. Miss Sudie, it seems, found it necessary to go into
+the garden to inspect some late horticultural operations, and Mr.
+Robert, quite accidentally, followed her. They discussed matters with
+Uncle Joe, the gardener, for a time, and then wandered off toward a
+summer-house, where it was pleasant to sit in the soft November
+sunlight.
+
+The conversation which followed was an interesting one, of course. Let
+us listen to it.
+
+"The vines are all killed by the frost," said Cousin Sudie.
+
+"Yes; you have frosts here earlier than I thought," said Robert.
+
+"O we always expect frost about the tenth of October; at least the
+gentlemen never feel safe if their tobacco isn't cut by that time. This
+year frost was late for us, but the nights are getting very cool now,
+a'n't they?"
+
+"Yes; I found blankets very comfortable even before the tenth of
+October."
+
+"It's lucky then that you wa'n't staying with Aunt Polly Barksdale."
+
+"Why? and who is your Aunt Polly?"
+
+"Aunt Polly? Why she is Uncle Charles's widow. She is the model for the
+whole connection; and I've had her held up to me as a pattern ever since
+I can remember, but I never saw her till about a year ago, when she came
+and staid a week or two with us; and between ourselves I think she is
+the most disagreeably good person I ever saw. She is good, but somehow
+she makes me wicked, and I don't think I'm naturally so. I didn't read
+my Bible once while she staid, and I do love to read it. I suppose I
+shall like to have her with me in heaven, if I get there, because there
+I won't have anything for her to help me about, but here 'I'm better
+midout' her."
+
+"I quite understand your feeling; but you haven't told me why I'm lucky
+not to have her for my hostess these cold nights."
+
+"O you'd be comfortable enough now that tobacco is cut; but when Cousin
+Billy staid with her, a good many years ago, he used to complain of
+being cold--he was only a boy--and ask her for blankets, and she would
+hold up her hands and exclaim: 'Why, child, your uncle's tobacco isn't
+cut yet! It will never do to say it's cold enough for blankets when your
+poor uncle hasn't got his tobacco cut. Think of your uncle, child! he
+can't afford to have his tobacco all killed.' But come, Cousin Robert,
+you mustn't sit here; besides I want to show you an experiment I am
+trying with winter cabbage."
+
+This, I believe, is a faithful report of what passed between Robert and
+Sudie in the summer-house. I am very well aware that they ought to have
+talked of other things, but they did not; and, as a faithful chronicler,
+I can only state the facts as they occurred, begging the reader to
+remember that I am in no way responsible for the conduct of these young
+people.
+
+The cabbage experiment duly explained and admired, Mr. Robert and Miss
+Sudie walked out of the garden and into the house. There they found
+themselves alone again, and Robert plunged at once into the matter of
+which both had been thinking all the time.
+
+"Cousin Sudie," he said, "have you thought about what I said to you last
+night?"
+
+"Yes--a little."
+
+"I will not ask you just yet _what_ you have thought," said Robert,
+taking her unresisting hand into his, "because there are some
+explanations which I am in honor bound to make to you before asking you
+to give me an answer, one way or the other. When I told you I loved you,
+of course I meant to ask you to be my wife, but that I must not ask you
+until you know exactly what I am. I want you to know precisely what it
+is that I ask you to do. I am a poor man, as you know. I have a good
+position, however, with a salary of two thousand dollars a year, and
+that is more than sufficient for the support of a family, particularly
+in an inexpensive college town; so that there is room for a little
+constant accumulation. If I marry, I shall insure my life for ten
+thousand dollars, so that my death shall not leave my wife destitute. I
+have a very small reserve fund in bank too--thirteen hundred dollars
+now, since I paid for that horse. And there is still three hundred
+dollars due me for last year's work. These are my means and my
+prospects, and now I tell you again, Sudie, that I love you, and I ask
+you bluntly will you marry me?"
+
+The young lady said nothing.
+
+"If you wish for time to think about it Sudie--"
+
+"I suppose that would be the proper way, according to custom; but,"
+raising her eyes fearlessly to his, "I have already made up my mind, and
+I do not want to act a falsehood. There is nothing to be ashamed of, I
+suppose, in frankly loving such a man as you, Robert. I will be your
+wife."
+
+The little woman felt wonderfully brave just then, and accordingly,
+without further ado, she commenced to cry.
+
+The reader would be very ill-mannered indeed should he listen further to
+a conversation which was wholly private and confidential in its
+character; wherefore let us close our ears and the chapter at once.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+_In which Mr. Pagebrook Bids his Friends Good-by._
+
+
+The next two or three days passed away very quickly with Mr. Robert and
+Miss Sudie. Robert made to his aunt a statement of the results, without
+entering into the details of his conferences with Miss Sudie, and was
+assured of Col. Barksdale's approval when that gentleman and Billy
+should return from the court they were attending. The two young people,
+however, were in no hurry for the day appointed for that return to come.
+They were very happy as it was. They discussed their future, and laid
+many little plans to be carried out after awhile. It was arranged that
+Robert should return to Virginia at the beginning of the next long
+vacation; that the wedding should take place immediately upon his
+coming; and that the two should make a little trip through the mountains
+and, returning to Shirley, remain there until the autumn should bring
+Robert's professional duties around again.
+
+They were in the very act of talking these matters over for the
+twentieth time, one afternoon, when Maj. Pagebrook rode up. He seemed
+absent and nervous in manner, and after a few moments of general
+conversation asked to see Robert alone upon business. When the two were
+closeted together Maj. Pagebrook opened his pocket-book and taking out a
+paper he slowly unfolded it, saying: "I have just received this, Robert,
+and I suppose there is a duplicate of it awaiting you in the
+post-office."
+
+Robert looked at the paper in blank astonishment.
+
+"What does this mean?" he cried; "my draft protested! Why I have sixteen
+hundred dollars in that bank, and my draft was for only three hundred."
+
+"It appears that the bank has failed," said Maj. Pagebrook. "At least I
+reckon that's what the Richmond people mean. They say, in a note to me,
+that it 'went to pot' a week ago. It seems there are a good many banks
+failing this fall. I hope you won't lose everything, though, Robert."
+
+The blow was a terrible one to the young man. In a moment he took in the
+entire situation. To lose the money he had in bank was to be forced to
+begin the world over again with absolutely nothing; but at any rate he
+could pay the debt he owed to his cousin very shortly, and to be free
+from debt is in itself a luxury to a man of his temperament. He thought
+but a moment and then said:
+
+"Cousin Edwin, I shall have to ask you to carry that protested draft for
+me a few days if you will. There is some money due me on the fifteenth
+of this month, and it is now the ninth. I asked that it should be sent
+to me here, but I shall go to Philadelphia at once, and I'll collect it
+when I get there and send you the amount. I promise you faithfully that
+it shall be remitted by the fifteenth at the very furthest."
+
+"O don't trouble yourself to be so exact, Robert," replied Maj.
+Pagebrook. "Send it when you can; I'm in no very great hurry. Sarah Ann
+says we must invest all our spare money in the new railroad stock; but I
+needn't pay anything on that till the twenty-third, so there will be
+time enough. But for that I wouldn't care how long I waited."
+
+"I shall not let it remain unpaid after the fifteenth at furthest," said
+Robert. "I do not like to let it lie even that long."
+
+Maj. Pagebrook took his departure and Robert told Sudie of the bad news,
+telling her also that he must leave next morning for Philadelphia, to
+see if it were possible to save something from the wreck of the bank.
+
+"Besides," said he, "I must get to work. There are nearly two months of
+time between now and the first of January, and I cannot afford to lose
+it now that I have lost this money."
+
+"What will you do, Robert? You can't do anything teaching in that time."
+
+"No, but I can do a good many things. I write a little now and then for
+the papers and magazines, for one thing. I can pick up something, I
+think, which will at least pay expenses."
+
+He then told her of his arrangement with Maj. Pagebrook about the
+protested draft, and finished by repeating what that gentleman had said
+about the investment in railroad stock.
+
+This troubled Miss Sudie more than all the rest, and Robert seeing it
+pressed her for a reason. But no reason would she give, and Robert was
+forced to content himself with the thought that his trouble naturally
+brought trouble to her. To her aunt, however, she expressed her
+conviction that Cousin Sarah Ann had suggested the railroad investment
+merely for the sake of compelling her husband to press Robert for
+payment. She was troubled to know that the payment must be deferred even
+for a few days, but rejoiced in the knowledge of Robert's ability to
+discharge his indebtedness speedily. It galled her to think of the
+unpleasant things which the amiable mistress of The Oaks would manage to
+say about Robert pending the payment. There was no help for it, however,
+and so the brave little woman persuaded herself that it was her duty to
+appear cheerful in order that Robert might be so; and whatever Miss
+Sudie believed to be her duty in any case Miss Sudie did, however
+difficult the doing might be. She accordingly wore the pleasantest
+possible smile and the most cheerful of countenances whenever Robert was
+present, doing every particle of her necessary crying in her own room
+and carefully washing away all traces of the process before opening the
+door.
+
+Robert made all his preparations for departure that afternoon, and on
+the following morning was driven to the Court House in the family
+carriage. When he arrived there he got what letters there were for him
+in the post-office, read them, and talked a few moments with Ewing
+Pagebrook, who had spent the preceding night with Foggy and Dr.
+Harrison, and was now deeply contrite and rather anxious than otherwise
+that Robert should scold him. There was no time, however, even for the
+giving of advice, as the train had now come, and Robert must go at once.
+A hasty hand-shaking closed the interview, and Robert was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Goes to Work._
+
+
+When Robert arrived in Philadelphia his first care was to make inquiries
+with regard to the bank in which his money was deposited. He learned
+that it had suspended payment about one week before, and that its
+affairs were in the hands of an assignee. This was all he could find out
+on the afternoon of his arrival, and with this he was forced to content
+himself until the next day, when he succeeded with some little
+difficulty in securing an interview with the assignee. To him he said:
+"My only purpose is to ascertain the exact state of the bank's affairs,
+in order that I may know what to do."
+
+"That I cannot tell you, sir. The books are still in confusion, and
+until they can be straightened out it is impossible to say what the
+result will be."
+
+"Tell me, then, are the assets anything like equal to the liabilities?"
+
+"That is exactly what the books must show. I can't say till we get a
+statement."
+
+"You can at least tell me then," said Robert, provoked at the man's
+reticence, "whether there are any assets at all, or not."
+
+"No, I can make no statement until the books are examined. Then a
+complete exhibit of affairs will be made."
+
+"Pardon me," said Robert, "but this question is one of serious moment
+to me. You have been examining this bank's affairs for a week, I
+believe?"
+
+"Yes, about a week."
+
+"You must have some idea, then, whether or not there is likely to be
+anything at all left for depositors, and you will oblige me very much
+indeed by giving me your personal opinion on the subject. I understand
+how impossible it is to give exact figures; but you cannot have failed
+to discover by this time whether or not the assets amount to anything
+worth considering, as compared with the amount of the bank's
+liabilities. I would like the little information you can give me,
+however inexact it may be."
+
+"My dear sir," said the assignee, "I'm afraid you don't understand these
+things. Our statement is not ready yet, and I can not possibly tell you
+what its nature will be until it is."
+
+"When will it be ready, sir?" asked Robert.
+
+"That I can not say as yet, but it will be forthcoming in due time, sir;
+in due time."
+
+"Will it require a week, or a month, or two or three months? You can, at
+least, make an approximate estimate of the time necessary for its
+preparation."
+
+"Well, no," said the man of business, "I should not like to make any
+promises; I am hard at work, and the statement will be ready in due
+time, sir; in due time."
+
+Robert left the man's presence thoroughly disgusted. Thinking the matter
+over he concluded that the affairs of the bank must be in a very bad
+way. Otherwise, he argued, the man would not be so silent on the
+subject.
+
+Now the assignee was perfectly right in saying that Robert did not
+understand these things. If he had understood them he would have known
+that the reticence from which he thus argued the worst, meant just
+nothing at all. Business men are not apt to commit themselves
+unnecessarily in any case, and especially in such a case as the one
+concerning which Robert had been inquiring. The bank might have been
+utterly bankrupt or entirely solvent, and that assignee would in either
+case have given precisely the same answers to our young friend's
+questions. He knew nothing with absolute certainty as yet, and could
+know nothing certainly until the last column of figures should be added
+up and the final balances struck. Then he could make a statement, but
+until then he would say nothing at all. He acted after his kind.
+Business is business; and, as a rule, business men know only one way of
+doing things.
+
+Robert, however, was not a business man. He knew nothing about these
+things, and accordingly, making no allowance for a business habit as one
+of the factors in the problem, he proceeded to argue that if the affairs
+of the bank were in the least degree hopeful the man would have said so.
+As he had carefully and persistently avoided saying anything of the
+kind, Robert could only conclude that there was no hope at all to be
+entertained.
+
+He quickly determined, therefore, to waste no more time. Abandoning his
+sixteen hundred dollars as utterly lost, he packed his valise and went
+at once to New York to find work of some kind. How he succeeded we shall
+best see from his letter to Cousin Sudie, from which I am allowed to
+quote a passage or two.
+
+"I am very busy with some topical articles, as the newspaper folk call
+them. That is to say, I am visiting factories of various kinds and
+writing detailed accounts of their operations, coupling with the facts
+gathered thus, a gossipy account of the origin, history, etc., of the
+industry. I find the work very interesting, and it promises to be quite
+remunerative too. I fell into it by accident. About a year ago I spent
+an evening with a friend, Mr. Dudley, in New York, and while at his
+house his seven year old boy showed me some of his toys--little German
+contrivances; and I, knowing something about the toys and the people who
+make them--you know I made a summer trip through Europe once--fell to
+telling him about them. His father was as much interested as he, but the
+matter soon passed from my mind. When I came over here a week ago to
+look for something to do I visited the office of this paper, hoping that
+I should be allowed to do a little reporting or drudgery of some sort
+till something better should turn up. Who should I find in the editor's
+chair but my friend Dudley. I told him my errand, and his reply was:
+
+"'I haven't a moment now, Pagebrook, but you're the very man I want;
+come up and see me this evening. We dine at half-past six, and over our
+roast-beef I can explain fully what I mean.'
+
+"I went, as a matter of course, and at dinner Dudley said:
+
+"'Our paper, Pagebrook, is meant to be a kind of American Penny
+Magazine. That is to say, we want to fill it full of _entertaining_
+information, partly for the sake of the information but more for the
+sake of the entertainment. Now I have tried at least fifty people, in
+the hope of finding somebody who could tell, in writing, just such
+things as you told our Ben when you were here a year ago. I never
+dreamed of getting you to do it, but you're just the man, and about the
+only one, too, I begin to think. Now, if you've a mind to do it, I can
+keep you busy as long as you like. I don't mean to confine you to this
+particular kind of work, but I'd rather have articles of that sort than
+any others, and the publishers won't grumble if I pay you twenty dollars
+apiece for them. They mustn't exceed two of our columns--say two
+thousand words in all--but if you can't tell your story in any
+particular instance within those limits, you can make two articles out
+of it. I've already told your toy story, but you can easily hunt up
+plenty of other things to tell about. Common things are best--things
+people see every day but know nothing about.'
+
+"I set to work the next day, and have been busy ever since. I like to
+visit factories and learn all the petty details of their operations, and
+I find that it is the petty details which go to make the description
+interesting. I like the work so well that I almost wish I had no
+professorship, so that I might follow as a business this kind of
+writing, and some other sorts in which I seem to succeed--for I do not
+confine myself to one class of articles, or to one paper either, for
+that matter, but am trying my hand at a variety of things, and I find
+the work very fascinating. But it is altogether better, I suppose, that
+I should retain my position in the college, even if I could be sure of
+always finding as good a market as I do just now for my wares, which is
+doubtful. I have lost the whole of my little reserve fund--as the bank
+seems hopelessly broken; and if I had nothing to depend upon except the
+problematic sale of articles, I would do you a wrong to ask you to let
+our wedding-day remain fixed. As it is, my salary from the college is
+more than sufficient for our support, and as my expenses from now until
+the time appointed will be very small indeed, I shall have several
+hundred dollars accumulated by that time; wherefore if Uncle Carter does
+not object, pray let our plans remain undisturbed, will you not, Sudie?"
+
+The rest of this letter, which is a very long one, is not only personal
+in its character, but is also of a strictly private nature; and while I
+am free to copy here so much of this and other letters in my possession
+as will aid me in the telling of my story, I do not feel myself at
+liberty to let the reader into the sacred inner chambers of a
+correspondence with which we have properly no concern, except as it
+helps us to the understanding of this history.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+_A Short Chapter, not very interesting, perhaps, but of some Importance
+in the Story, as the Reader will probably discover after awhile._
+
+
+When the letter from which a quotation was made in the preceding chapter
+came to Miss Sudie, that young lady was not at Shirley but at The Oaks,
+where Ewing was lying very ill. He had been prostrated suddenly, a few
+days before, and from the first had been delirious with fever. The
+doctor had appeared unusually anxious regarding his patient ever since
+he was first summoned to see him, and Cousin Sarah Ann having given way
+to her alarm at the evident danger in which her son lay to such an
+extent as to be wholly useless to herself or to anybody else, Miss Sudie
+had been called in to act as temporary mistress of the mansion.
+
+The very next mail after the one which brought her letter, had in it one
+from Robert addressed to Ewing himself. Miss Sudie, upon discovering it
+in the bag, carried it to Cousin Sarah Ann, and was very decidedly
+shocked when that estimable lady without a word broke the seal and read
+the letter, putting it carefully away afterwards in Ewing's desk, of
+which she had the key. Miss Sudie said nothing, however, and the matter
+was almost forgotten when in the evening the doctor came and sat down by
+the sick boy's bed.
+
+"I think it my duty to tell you," said he to Cousin Sarah Ann, "that the
+crisis of the disease is rapidly approaching, and I must wait here until
+it passes. Your son is in very great danger; but we shall know within a
+few hours whether there is hope for him or not. I confess that while I
+hope the best I fear the worst."
+
+Mrs. Pagebrook was thoroughly overcome by her fright. She loved her son,
+in her own queer way; and being a very weak woman she gave way entirely
+when she understood in how very critical a condition the boy was. It was
+necessary to exclude her from the room, and the doctor remained, with
+Miss Sudie and Maj. Pagebrook. About midnight he stood and looked
+intently at the sick man's features, listening also to his hard-coming
+breath. He stood there full half an hour--then turning to Miss Sudie, he
+said:
+
+"It's of no use, Miss Barksdale. Our young friend is beyond hope. He
+cannot live an hour. Perhaps you'd better inform his mother."
+
+But before Miss Sudie could leave the bedside, Ewing roused himself for
+a moment, and tried to say something to her.
+
+"Tell Robert--I got sick the very day--twenty-one--"
+
+This was all Miss Sudie could hear, and she thought the patient's mind
+was wandering still, as it had been throughout his illness. And these
+incoherent words were the last the young man ever uttered.
+
+About a week after Ewing's death Cousin Sarah Ann said to Maj.
+Pagebrook:
+
+"Cousin Edwin, are you ever going to collect that money from Robert? He
+promised to pay you on or before the fifteenth of November, and now it's
+nearly the last of the month and you haven't a line of explanation from
+him yet. I told you he wouldn't pay it till we made him. You oughtn't
+to've let him run away in your debt at all, and you wouldn't either, if
+you'd a'listened to me. Why don't you write to him?"
+
+"Well, I don't like to press the poor fellow. He's lost his money you
+know, and I reckon he finds it hard to pull through till January. He'll
+pay when he can, I reckon."
+
+"O that's always the way with you! For my part I don't believe he had
+any money in the bank; and besides he said there was some money coming
+to him on his salary, and he promised faithfully to pay you out of that.
+I told you he wouldn't, because I knew him. He tried to make out he was
+so much superior to the rest of us, and talked about 'reforming' poor
+Ewing, just as if the poor boy was a drunkard and--and--and--if you
+don't write I will, and I'll make him pay that money too, or I'll know
+why."
+
+The conversation ended as such conversations usually did in Maj.
+Pagebrook's family, namely, by the abrupt departure of that gentleman
+from the house.
+
+Cousin Sarah Ann evidently meant what she said, and her husband was no
+sooner out of the house than she got out her desk and wrote; not to
+Robert, however, but to Messrs. Steel, Flint & Sharp, attorneys and
+counselors at law, in New York city. Her note was not a long one, but it
+told the whole story of Robert's indebtedness from a not very favorable
+point of view, and closed with a request that the attorneys should "push
+the case by every means the law allows." This note was signed not with
+Cousin Sarah Ann's own but with her husband's name, and her first
+proceeding, after sealing the letter, was to send it by a servant to the
+post-office. She then ordered her carriage and drove over to Shirley.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+_Cousin Sarah Ann Takes Robert's Part._
+
+
+Cousin Sarah Ann talked a good deal. Ill-natured people sometimes said
+she talked a good deal of nonsense, and possibly she did, but she never
+talked without a purpose, and she commonly managed to talk pretty
+successfully, too, so far as the accomplishment of her ends was
+concerned. In the present case, while I am wholly unprepared to say
+exactly why she wanted to talk, I am convinced that this excellent
+lady's visit to Shirley was undertaken solely for the purpose of
+securing an opportunity to talk.
+
+Arrived there, she greeted her friends with her black-bordered
+handkerchief over her eyes, and for a time seemed hardly able to speak
+at all, so overpowering was her emotion. Then she said:
+
+"I wouldn't think of visiting at such a time as this, of course, but
+Shirley seems so much like home, and I felt like I must have somebody to
+talk to who could sympathize with me. Dear Sudie was _so_ good to me
+during--during it all."
+
+After a time Cousin Sarah Ann composed herself, and controlled her
+emotion sufficiently to converse connectedly without making painful
+pauses, though her voice continued from first to last to be
+uncomfortably suggestive of recent weeping.
+
+"Have you had any news of Robert lately?" she asked; "I do hope he's
+doing well."
+
+"We've had no letters since Sudie's came while she was at your house,"
+said Colonel Barksdale. "He was doing very well then, I believe, though
+he thought there was no hope of recovering anything from the bank."
+
+"I'm _so_ sorry," said Cousin Sarah Ann, "for I love Robert. He was so
+like an older brother to my poor boy. I feel just like a mother to him,
+and I can't bear to have anybody say anything against him."
+
+"Nobody ever does say anything to his discredit, I suppose," said Col.
+Barksdale. "He is really one of the finest young men I ever knew, and
+the very soul of honor, too. He comes honestly by that, however, for his
+father was just so before him."
+
+"That's just what I tell Cousin Edwin," said Cousin Sarah Ann. "I tell
+him dear Robert means to do right, and will do it just as soon as ever
+he can. Poor fellow! he has been _so_ unfortunate. Somebody must have
+made Cousin Edwin suspicious of him, else he wouldn't think so badly of
+poor Robert."
+
+"Why, Sarah Ann, what do you mean?" asked Col. Barksdale. "Surely Edwin
+has no reason to think ill of Robert."
+
+"No, that he hasn't; and that's what I tell him. But he's been
+prejudiced and won't hear a word. He says nothing about it to anybody
+but me, but he really suspects Robert of meaning to cheat him, and--"
+
+"Cheat him!" cried all in a breath, "Why, how can that be?"
+
+"O it _can't_ be, and so I tell Cousin Edwin; but he insists that Robert
+told him he would pay that three hundred dollars on or before the
+fifteenth, and I reckon the poor boy hasn't been able to do it, or he
+would."
+
+"Why, Sarah Ann, you don't tell me that Robert has failed to pay Edwin
+that money!" said the Colonel.
+
+"Why, I thought you knew that, or I wouldn't have told you about it. No,
+he hasn't sent it yet; but he will, of course, if I can keep Cousin
+Edwin from writing him violent letters about it."
+
+"Hasn't he written to explain the delay?" asked the Colonel.
+
+"No; and that's what Cousin Edwin always reminds me of when I try to
+take Robert's part. He says if he meant to be honest he would have
+written. I tell him I know how it is. I can fully understand Robert's
+silence. He has failed to get money when he expected it, I reckon, and
+has naturally hated to write till he could send the money. Poor boy! I'm
+afraid he'll overwork himself and half starve himself, too, trying to
+get that money together, when we could wait for it just as well as not."
+
+"There certainly can be no apology for his failure to write, after
+promising payment on a definite day," said Col. Barksdale; "and I am
+both surprised and grieved that he should have acted in so unworthy a
+way!"
+
+With this the Colonel arose and paced the room in evident anger.
+Robert's champion, Cousin Sarah Ann, could not stand this.
+
+"Surely _you_ are not going to turn against poor Robert without giving
+him a hearing, are you, Cousin Carter? I thought you too just for that,
+though I should never have mentioned the subject at all if I hadn't
+thought you all knew about it, and would take Robert's part like me."
+
+"I shall give him a hearing," said the Colonel; "but in the meantime I
+must say his conduct has been very singular--very singular indeed."
+
+"O he's only thoughtless!" said the excellent woman, in her anxiety to
+shield "dear Robert."
+
+"No; he is not thoughtless. He never is thoughtless, whatever else he
+may be. If you wish to defend him, Sarah Ann, you must find some other
+excuse for his conduct. Confound the fellow! I can't help loving him,
+but if he isn't what I took him for, I'll----"
+
+The Colonel did not finish his threat; perhaps he hardly knew how.
+
+"Now, Cousin Carter, please don't you fly into a passion like Cousin
+Edwin does," said Cousin Sarah Ann, pleadingly, "but wait till you find
+out all the facts. Write to Robert, and I'm sure he will explain it all.
+I wish I hadn't said a word about it."
+
+"You did perfectly right, perfectly," said Colonel Barksdale. "If Robert
+has failed in a point of honor, I ought to know it, because in that case
+I have a duty to do--a painful one, but a duty nevertheless."
+
+"O you men have no charity at all. You're _so_ hard on one another, and
+I'm so sorry I said anything about it. Good-by, Cousin Mary. Good-by,
+Sudie dear. Come and see me, won't you? I miss you _so_ much in my
+trouble. Come often. Come and stay some with me. Do. That's a dear."
+
+And so Cousin Sarah Ann drove away, rejoicing in the consciousness that
+she had vigorously defended the absent Robert; and perhaps rejoicing too
+in the conviction that that gentleman could not possibly explain his
+conduct to the satisfaction of Colonel Barksdale.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+_Miss Barksdale Expresses some Opinions._
+
+
+Miss Sudie Barksdale was a very brave little woman, and she needed all
+her courage on the present occasion. She felt the absolute necessity
+there was that she should sit out Cousin Sarah Ann's conversation, and
+she sat it out, in what agony it is not hard to imagine. When that lady
+drove away Miss Sudie ran off to her room, where she remained for two or
+three hours. Upon her privacy we will not intrude.
+
+Col. Barksdale called Billy from his office, and giving him the newly
+discovered facts, asked his opinion. Billy was simply thunderstruck.
+
+"I can't understand it," said he; "Bob certainly had that money coming
+to him from his last year's salary, for he told me about it the day we
+first met in Philadelphia. If Bob isn't a man of honor, in the strictest
+sense of the term, I never was so deceived in anybody in my life. And
+yet this business looks as ugly as home-made sin. Bob knew perfectly
+well that if you or I had been at home when he left we wouldn't have
+allowed his protested draft to stand over at all, but would have paid it
+on the spot. He knew too that if he couldn't pay when he promised he
+could have written to me or to you explaining the matter, and we would
+have lent him the money for twenty years if necessary. I don't
+understand it at all. It looks ugly. It looks as if he meant to make
+that money clear."
+
+"Well, my son," said Col. Barksdale, "I'll give him one chance to
+explain at any rate. I'll write to him immediately."
+
+Accordingly the old gentleman went to his library and was engaged for
+some time in writing. After awhile there came a knock at his door, and
+Miss Sudie entered.
+
+"Come in, daughter," said he, tenderly. "I want to talk with you."
+
+"I thought you would," said the sad-eyed little maiden, "and that's why
+I came. I wanted our talk to be private."
+
+"You're a good girl, my child." Then, after a pause, "This is bad news
+about Robert."
+
+"Yes; and from a bad source," said Sudie.
+
+"I do not understand you, daughter."
+
+"We have the best of authority, Uncle Carter, for saying that 'men do
+not gather grapes of thorns!'"
+
+"But, my child, I suppose there can be no doubt of the facts in this
+case, so far as we have them. We know the circumstances of Robert's
+indebtedness to Edwin, and whatever her motives may have been, Sarah Ann
+would hardly venture to say that he has neither paid nor written in
+explanation of his failure to do so, if he had done either."
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"Robert ought to have paid at any cost to himself if it were possible;
+and if it were not, then he should have written in a frank, manly way,
+explaining his inability to fulfill his promise. Appearances are so
+strongly against him that I have written with very little hope of
+eliciting any satisfactory reply."
+
+"Will you mind letting me see what you have written, Uncle Carter?"
+
+"No; you may read the letter. Here it is."
+
+Miss Sudie read it. It ran thus:
+
+"I have just now learned that you have wholly failed to fulfill your
+solemn and deliberate promise, made on the eve of your departure from
+Shirley, to the effect that you would, without fail, take up your
+protested draft for three hundred dollars ($300), held by your Cousin
+Major Edwin Pagebrook, on or before the fifteenth (15th), day of this
+current month. It is now the thirtieth (30th), and hence your promise is
+fifteen (15) days over due. I learn also that you have failed to write
+in explanation of your delinquency or in any way to account or apologise
+for it. Permit me to say that as your conduct presents itself to me at
+this time, it is unworthy the gentleman which you profess to be, and I
+now demand of you either that you shall give me immediately a
+satisfactory explanation of the matter--and that, I must confess, sir,
+seems hardly possible--or that you shall at once write to my niece and
+adopted daughter, releasing her from her engagement with you."
+
+Having finished reading the letter Sudie handed it back to her uncle
+without a word of comment. Not that she was in this or in any other case
+afraid to express her opinion. Her uncle knew very well when he gave her
+the letter that she would say absolutely nothing about it until he
+should ask her, and he knew equally well that upon asking her he would
+get a perfectly honest expression of her thought, whatever it might
+happen to be. But Colonel Barksdale was, for the time, afraid to ask her
+opinion. He was a brave man and an honest one. He was known throughout
+the state as a lawyer of great ability and as a gentleman of the most
+undoubted sort. And yet at this moment he found himself afraid of a
+young girl, who stood in the relation of daughter to him--a girl who was
+never violent in word or act, a girl who honored him as a father and
+loved him with all her heart. He knew she would unhesitatingly speak the
+truth, and it was the truth of which he was afraid. He had not been
+aware, when he wrote, of any disposition to do Robert injustice, else,
+being a just man, he would have spurned the thought from him; but now
+that he felt bound to ask Miss Sudie for her opinion of his course, he
+became uncomfortably conscious that there had been other impulses than
+just ones governing him in his choice of language. At last he asked the
+dreaded question.
+
+"What do you think, daughter?"
+
+"I think you have not done yourself justice, Uncle Carter, in writing
+such a letter as that. The letter is not like you, at all."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Do you mean why and wherefore?"
+
+"Yes. Why and wherefore, Sudie?"
+
+"Because it is not like you to do an act of injustice, and when you are
+betrayed into one you misrepresent yourself."
+
+"But wherein is my letter an act of injustice, my child?"
+
+"It assumes unproved guilt; and I believe even criminals are entitled to
+a more favorable starting-point than that in their efforts to clear
+themselves."
+
+"But, Sudie, I have not assumed that Robert is guilty. I have asked him
+to explain."
+
+"Yes; and in the very act of asking him to explain to you, his judge,
+you have assured him from the bench that the court believes an
+explanation impossible."
+
+"Have I? Let me see."
+
+After looking at the letter again he resumed:
+
+"I believe you are right about that; I will rewrite the letter, omitting
+the objectionable clause. Is that all Sudie?"
+
+"Perhaps when you come to rewrite the letter you will see that its tone
+is as unjust as any words could possibly be. It seems so to me."
+
+"Let me try my hand again, daughter. Keep your seat please while I write
+a new letter instead of rewriting the old one."
+
+"There. How will that do?" he asked, as he handed the young woman this
+hastily-written note.
+
+     "MY DEAR ROBERT: We have just been hearing some news of you, which
+     I trust you will be able to contradict or explain. It is that you
+     have failed to keep your promise in the matter of your indebtedness
+     to Major Pagebrook, and that you have not even offered a word by
+     way of apology or explanation. The peculiar relations in which you
+     now stand to my family justify me, I think, in asking you to
+     explain a matter which, unexplained, must reflect upon your
+     character as an honorable man. Please write to me by return mail."
+
+"That is more like you, Uncle Carter. But I am sorry to find that you
+are convinced, in advance, of Robert's guilt. You propose to sit in
+judgment upon his case, and a court should not only appear but be free
+from bias."
+
+"Why, my daughter, I can hardly see how there can be any possible excuse
+in a case like this. You cannot deny that both facts and appearances are
+against him."
+
+"I doubt whether we have the facts yet, Uncle Carter. Aside from my
+knowledge of Cous--of Sarah Ann Pagebrook's general character, I saw
+her do a dishonorable thing once. I saw her open and read a letter which
+was not addressed to her, and I have no faith whatever in her, or in any
+statement which comes from her or through her."
+
+Colonel Barksdale was probably not sorry that the conversation was
+interrupted at this point by the entrance of a servant announcing a
+client. He felt that it would be idle to argue with Sudie in a matter in
+which her feelings were strongly enlisted, and he felt that in calling
+Robert to an account he was doing a simple duty. He was, therefore,
+rather pleased than otherwise to have an accident terminate a
+conversation which did not promise to terminate itself agreeably.
+
+Miss Sudie went to her room and wrote to Robert on her own account. I am
+not at liberty to print her letter here, as I should greatly like to do,
+but the reader will readily guess its general nature. She told Robert in
+detail everything that had been said concerning him that day. She told
+him of her uncle's anger, and of the probability that everybody would
+believe him guilty if he failed to establish his innocence; but she
+assured him that she, at least, had no idea of doubting him for a
+moment.
+
+"For your sake," she wrote, "I hope you will be able to offer a
+convincing explanation; but whether you can do that or not, Robert, _I
+know_ that you are true and manly, and not even facts shall ever make me
+doubt your truth. I may never be able to see how your action has been
+right, but I shall know, nevertheless, that it has been so. My woman
+love is truer, to me at least, than logic--truer than fact--truer than
+truth itself."
+
+All this was very illogical--very unreasonable, but very natural. It was
+"just like a woman" to set her emotions up in a holy place and compel
+her reason to do homage to them as to a god. And that is the very best
+thing there is about women, too. You and I, sir, would fare badly if in
+naming a woman wife we could not feel assured that her love will ever
+override her reason in matters concerning us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+_Mr. Sharp Does His Duty._
+
+
+The law firm of Steel, Flint & Sharp was a thoroughly well constituted
+one. Its organization was an admirable example of means perfectly
+adapted to the accomplishment of ends. It was not an eminent firm but it
+was an eminently successful one, particularly in the lines of business
+to which it gave special attention, and the leading one of these was
+collecting doubtful debts, as Cousin Sarah Ann had learned from one of
+the firm's cards which had fallen in her way. Indeed it was the
+accidental possession of this card which enabled her to put the matter
+of Robert's indebtedness into the hands of New York attorneys, and I
+suspect that she would never have thought of doing so at all but for the
+enticing words, fairly printed upon the card--"particular attention
+given to the collection of doubtful debts, due to non-residents of New
+York."
+
+A prophet, we know, is not without honor save in his own country, and so
+it is not strange that the people who familiarly knew the countenances
+of the gentlemen composing the firm of Steel, Flint & Sharp, esteemed
+these gentlemen less highly than did those other people, resident
+outside of New York, who could know these counselors at law only through
+their profusely distributed cards and circulars. Such was the fact; and
+as a result it happened that the clients of the firm were chiefly people
+who, living in other parts of the country, were compelled to intrust
+their business in New York to the hands of whatever attorneys they
+believed were the leading ones in the metropolis. And it was to let
+people know who were the leading lawyers of the city, that Messrs.
+Steel, Flint & Sharp industriously scattered their cards and circulars
+throughout the country.
+
+Who Mr. Steel was I do not know, and I am strongly inclined to suspect
+that the rest of the world, including his partners, were in a state of
+equal ignorance. He was never seen about the firm's offices, and never
+represented anybody in court, but he was frequently referred to by his
+partners, especially when clients were disposed to complain of
+apparently exorbitant charges.
+
+"Mr. Steel can not give his attention to a case, sir, for nothing. His
+reputation is at stake, sir, in all we undertake. I really do not feel
+at liberty to ask Mr. Steel to authorize any reduction in this case,
+sir. He gave his personal attention to the papers--his personal
+attention, sir."
+
+And this would commonly send clients away suppressed, if not satisfied.
+
+Mr. Flint was well enough known. He managed the business of the firm. It
+was he who always knew precisely what Mr. Steel's opinion was. He
+alone, of all the world, was able to speak positively of matters
+concerning Mr. Steel. Mr. Sharp was his junior in the firm, though
+considerably his senior in years. For Mr. Sharp Mr. Flint entertained
+not one particle of respect, because that gentleman was not always what
+his name implied. Mr. Sharp left to himself would have been hopelessly
+honest and straightforward. He would have gone to the dogs, speedily,
+Mr. Flint said, but for his association with himself.
+
+"But you have excellent ability in your way, Sharp, excellent ability,"
+he would say when in a good humor. "You are a capital executive
+officer--a very good lieutenant. Your ideas of what to do in any given
+case are not always good, but when I tell you what to do you do it,
+Sharp. I always know you will do what I tell you, and do it well too."
+
+Mr. Sharp usually came to the office an hour earlier than Mr. Flint did,
+in order that he might have everything ready for Mr. Flint's examination
+when that gentleman should arrive. He read the letters, drew up papers,
+and was prepared to give his partner in each case the facts upon which
+his opinion or advice was necessary.
+
+On the morning of December 3d, Mr. Flint came softly into his office
+and, after hanging up his overcoat and warming his hands at the
+register, went into his inner den, saying, as he sat down:
+
+"I'm ready for you now, Sharp."
+
+Mr. Sharp arose from his desk and entered the private room, with his
+hands full of papers.
+
+"What's the first thing on docket, Sharp?"
+
+"Well, here's a collection to be made. Debtor, Robert Pagebrook,
+temporarily in the city. Boarding place not known. Writes for the
+newspapers, so I can easily find him. Creditor Edwin Pagebrook, of ----
+Court House, Virginia. Debtor got creditor to cash draft for three
+hundred dollars. Draft protested. Debtor came away, and promised to take
+up paper by fifteenth November. Hasn't done it. Instructions 'push
+him.'"
+
+"Any limitations?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What have you done?"
+
+"Nothing yet; I'll look him up to-day and dun him."
+
+"Yes, and let him get away from you. Sharp do you know that Julius Cæsar
+is dead?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"I'm glad to hear that you do know something then. Don't you see the
+point in this case? Go and make out affidavits on information. This
+fellow Robert what's his name is a 'transient,' and we'll get an order
+of arrest all ready and then you can dun him with some sense. Have your
+officer with you or convenient, and if he don't pay up, chuck him in
+jail. That's the way to do it. Never waste time dunning 'transients'
+when there's a ghost of a chance to cage them."
+
+"Well, but there don't seem to be any fraud here. The man seems to have
+had funds in the bank, only the bank suspended."
+
+"Sharp, you'll learn a little law after awhile, I hope. Don't you know
+the courts never look very sharply after cases where transients are
+concerned? How do we know he had money in the bank? Is there anything to
+show it?"
+
+"No; I believe not."
+
+"Well, then, don't you go to making facts in the interest of the other
+side. Let him make that out if he can. You just draw your affidavits to
+suit our purposes, not his. Go on to state that he drew a certain bill
+of exchange, and represented that he had funds, and so fraudulently
+obtained money, and all that; and then go on to say that his draft upon
+presentation was protested, and that instead of making it good he
+absconded. Be sure to say absconded, Sharp, it's half the battle. Courts
+haven't much use for men that abscond and then turn up in New York. Make
+your case strong enough, though. We only swear on information, you know,
+so if we do put it a little strong it don't matter. There. Go and fix it
+up right away, and then catch your man."
+
+A few hours later, as Robert Pagebrook sat writing in his room, Mr.
+Sharp and another man were shown in. Mr. Sharp opened the conversation.
+
+"This is Mr. Pagebrook, I believe?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Mr. _Robert_ Pagebrook?"
+
+"Yes. That is my name."
+
+"Thank you. My name is Sharp, of the firm of Steel, Flint & Sharp.
+That's our card, sir. I have called to solicit the payment, sir, of a
+small amount due Mr. Edwin Pagebrook, who has written asking us to
+collect it for him. The amount is three hundred dollars, I think.
+Yes. Here is the draft. Can you let me have the money to-day, Mr.
+Pagebrook?"
+
+"I have already remitted one third the amount, sir," said Robert, "and I
+hope to send the remainder in installments very soon. At present it is
+simply impossible for me to pay anything more."
+
+"Have you a receipt for the amount remitted?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"No. It was sent only yesterday. But if you will hold the draft a week
+or ten days longer, I will be able, within that time, to earn the whole
+of the amount remaining due, and your client will advise you, I am sure,
+of the receipt of the hundred dollars already sent."
+
+"We are not authorised to wait, sir," said Mr. Sharp. "On the contrary
+our instructions are positive to push the case."
+
+"But what can I do?" asked Robert. "I have already sent every dollar I
+had, and until I earn more I can pay no more."
+
+"The case is a peculiar one, sir. It has the appearance of a fraudulent
+debt and an attempt to run away from it. I must do my duty by my client,
+sir; and so this gentleman, who is a sheriff's officer, has an order for
+your arrest, which I must ask him to serve if you do not pay the debt to
+day."
+
+[Illustration: "LET HIM SERVE IT AT ONCE, THEN."]
+
+"Let him serve it at once, then," said Robert. "I can not pay now."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Takes a Lesson in the Law._
+
+
+As Robert was unable to give bail without calling upon his friend
+Dudley, which he determined not to do in any case, he was taken to the
+jail and locked up. Upon his arrival there he employed a messenger to
+carry a note to a young lawyer with whom he happened to be slightly
+acquainted, asking him to come to the jail at once. When he arrived
+Robert said to him:
+
+"Let me tell you in the outset, Mr. Dyker, that I have no money and no
+friends; wherefore if you allow me to consult you at all, it must be
+with the understanding that I cannot possibly pay you for your services
+until I can make the money. If you are willing to trust me to that
+extent, we can proceed to business."
+
+"You are very honorable, sir, to inform me, beforehand, of this fact.
+Pray go on. I will do what I can for you."
+
+"In the first place, then," said Robert, "I am a little puzzled to know
+how or why I am locked up. You have the papers, will you tell me how it
+is?"
+
+"O it's plain enough. You are held under an order of arrest."
+
+"But I don't understand. I thought imprisonment for debt was a thing of
+the past, in this country at least, and my only offense is indebtedness.
+Is it possible that men may still be imprisoned for debt in America?"
+
+"Well, that is about it," said the lawyer. "We have abolished the name
+but retain the thing in a slightly modified form--in New York at least.
+Theoretically you are not imprisoned, but merely held to answer. The
+plaintiffs have made out a case of fraud and non-residence, and so they
+had plain sailing."
+
+"But I always understood that our constitution or our law or something
+else secured every man against imprisonment except by due process of
+law, and gave to every accused person the right to be confronted with
+his accusers, to cross-examine witnesses, and to have his guilt or
+innocence passed upon by a jury of his countrymen."
+
+"That is the theory; but there are some classes of cases which are
+practically exceptions, and yours is one of them."
+
+"Then," said Robert, "it is true, is it, that an American may be
+arrested and sent to jail without trial, upon the mere strength of
+affidavits made by lawyers who know nothing of the facts except what
+they have heard from distant, irresponsible, and personally interested
+clients--affidavits upon information, I believe you call them?"
+
+"Well, you put it a little strongly, perhaps, but those are the facts in
+New York. Respectable lawyers, however, are careful to satisfy
+themselves of the facts before proceeding at all in such cases; and so
+the law, which is a very convenient one, rarely ever works injustice, I
+think--not once in twenty times, I should say."
+
+"But," said Robert, "the personal liberty of every non-resident and some
+resident debtors is, or in some cases may be, dependent solely upon the
+character of attorneys, as I understand you."
+
+"In some cases, yes. But pardon me. Had we not better come to the matter
+in hand?"
+
+"As we are not a legislature perhaps it would be better," said Robert.
+He then proceeded to relate the facts of the case, beginning with his
+drawing of the draft in good faith, its protest, and his consequent
+perplexity.
+
+"I did not 'abscond' at all," he continued, "but came away to see if I
+could save something from the wreck of the bank, and to seek work. In
+leaving, I promised to pay the debt on or before the fifteenth of last
+month, feeling certain that I could do so. I failed to do it,
+through----never mind, I failed to do it, but I have been trying hard
+ever since to get the money and discharge the obligation. I yesterday
+remitted a hundred dollars, and should have sent the rest as fast as I
+could make it. These are the facts. Now how am I to get out of here?"
+
+"You have nobody to go your bail?"
+
+"Nobody."
+
+"And no money?"
+
+"None. I sold my watch in order to get money on which to live while I
+was looking for work."
+
+"You did have money enough to your credit in that bank to have made your
+draft good if the bank hadn't suspended?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You can swear to that?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then I think we can manage this matter without much difficulty. We can
+admit the facts but deny the fraudulent intent, in affidavits of our
+own, and get discharged on that ground. I think we can easily overthrow
+the theory of fraud by showing that you actually had the money in bank
+and swearing that you drew against it in good faith."
+
+"Pardon me; but in doing that I should be bound, should I not, in honor
+if not in law, to state all the facts of the case in my affidavit? The
+theory of the proceeding is that I am putting the court in possession of
+all the facts and withholding nothing, is it not?"
+
+"Well--yes. I suppose it is."
+
+"Then let us abandon that plan forthwith."
+
+"But my dear sir----"
+
+"Pray don't argue the point. My mind is fully made up. Is there no other
+mode of securing my release?"
+
+"Yes; you might schedule out under article 5 of the Non-Imprisonment
+Act, I think."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"It is a sort of insolvency or bankruptcy proceeding, by which you come
+into court--any court of record--and offer to give up everything you
+have to your creditors, giving a sworn catalogue of all your debts and
+all your property, and praying release on the ground that you are
+unable to do more."
+
+"Well, as I have literally nothing in the way of property just now, that
+mode of procedure seems to fit my case precisely," said Robert, whose
+courage and good humor and indomitable cheerfulness stood him in good
+stead in this time of very sore trial. The world looked gloomy enough to
+him then in whatever way he chose to look at it, but the instinct of
+fight was large within him, and in the absence of other joys he felt a
+savage pleasure in knowing that his life henceforth must be a constant
+struggle against fearful odds--odds of prejudice as well as of poverty;
+for who could now take him by the hand and say to others this is my
+friend?
+
+"It's too late to accomplish anything to-day, Mr. Pagebrook," said the
+lawyer, looking at his watch; "but I will be here by ten o'clock
+to-morrow morning, and we will then go to work for your deliverance,
+which we can effect, I think, pretty quick. Good evening, sir."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Cuts himself loose from the Past and Plans a Future._
+
+
+When the lawyer had gone Robert sat down to deliberate upon the
+situation and to decide what was to be done in matters aside from the
+question of his release. He had that morning received Col. Barksdale's
+letter and Miss Sudie's. These must be answered at once, and he was not
+quite certain how he should answer them. After turning the matter over
+he determined upon his course and, according to his custom, having
+determined what to do he at once set about doing it. Having brought a
+supply of paper and envelopes from his room he had only to borrow pen
+and ink from the attendant.
+
+His first letter was addressed to the president of the college from
+which he had received his appointment as professor, and it consisted of
+a simple resignation, with no explanation except that contained in the
+sentence:
+
+"I can ill afford to surrender the position or the salary, but there are
+painful circumstances surrounding me, which compel me to this course.
+Pray excuse me from a fuller statement of the case."
+
+To Col. Barksdale he wrote:
+
+"Your letter surprises me only in its kindness and gentleness of tone.
+Under the circumstances I could have forgiven a good deal of harshness.
+For your forbearance, however, you have my hearty thanks. And now as to
+the subject matter of your note: I am sorry to say I can offer neither
+denial nor satisfactory explanation of the facts alleged against me. I
+must bear the blame that attaches to what I have done, and bearing that
+blame I know my duty to you and your family. I shall write by this mail
+to Miss Barksdale volunteering a release, which otherwise you would have
+a right to demand of me."
+
+Sealing this and directing it, Robert came to the hardest task of
+all--the writing of a letter to Cousin Sudie.
+
+"I hardly know how to write to you," he wrote. "Your generous faith in
+me in spite of everything is more than I had any right to expect, and
+more, I think, than you have any right, in justice to yourself, to give
+me. I thank you for it right heartily, but I feel that I must not accept
+it. When you listened to my words of love and gave them a place in your
+heart, I was a gentleman without reproach. Now a stain is upon my name,
+which I can never remove. The man to whom you promised your hand was not
+the absconding debtor who writes you this from a jail. I send this
+letter, therefore, to offer you a release from your engagement with me,
+if indeed any release be necessary. You cannot afford to know me or even
+to remember me hereafter. Forget me, then, or, if you cannot wholly
+forget, remember me only as an adventurer, who for a paltry sum sold his
+good name.
+
+"Good-by. I wish you well with all my heart."
+
+As he sealed these letters Robert felt that his hopes for the future
+were sealed up with them, and that the post which should bear them away
+would carry with it the better part of his life. And yet he did not
+wholly surrender himself to despair, as a weaker man might have done.
+The old life was gone from him forever. The only people whom he had
+known as in any sense his own would grasp his hand no more, and if they
+ever thought of him again it would be only to regret that they had known
+him at all. All this he felt keenly, but it did not follow that he
+should abandon himself, as a consequence. He was still a young man, and
+there was time enough for him to make a new life for himself--to find
+new friends and to do some worthy work in the world; and to the planning
+of this new life he at once addressed himself.
+
+He would teach no longer, and now that he had cut himself loose from
+that profession there was opportunity to do something at the business
+which he had found so agreeable of late. He would devote himself
+hereafter wholly to writing, and at the first opportunity he would
+become a regular member of the staff of some paper. Even if his earnings
+with his pen should prove small, what did that matter? He could never
+think of marrying now, and a very little would suffice to supply all his
+wants, his habits of life being simple and regular. It stung him when he
+remembered that there was a stain upon his name which could never be
+removed; but that, he knew, he must bear, and so he resolved to bear it
+bravely, as it becomes a man to bear all his burdens.
+
+With thoughts like these the stalwart young fellow sank to sleep on the
+bed assigned him in the jail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+_In which Miss Sudie Acts very Unreasonably._
+
+
+The men who make up mails and handle great bags full of letters every
+day of their lives grow accustomed to the business, I suppose, and learn
+after awhile to regard the bags and their contents merely as so many
+pounds of "mail matter." Otherwise they would soon become unfit for
+their duties. If they could weigh those bags with other than material
+scales--if they could know how many human hopes and fears; how much of
+human purpose and human despair; how many joys and how much of
+wretchedness those bags contain; if they could hear the moans that utter
+themselves inside the canvas; if they could know the varying purposes
+with which all those letters have been written, and the various effects
+they are destined to produce; if our mail carriers could know and feel
+all these things, or the half of them, we should shortly have no mail
+carriers at all. But fortunately there are prosaic souls enough in the
+world to make all necessary mail agents and postmasters, and undertakers
+and grave-diggers out of.
+
+In the small mail bag thrown off at the Court House one December
+morning, there was one little package of New York letters--three
+letters in all, but on those three letters hung the happiness of several
+human lives. Of one of them we shall learn nothing for the present. The
+other two, from Robert Pagebrook to his uncle and Miss Barksdale, we
+have already been permitted to read. When these were received at
+Shirley, Miss Sudie took hers to her own room and read it there, after
+which she sat down and answered it. Col. Barksdale read his with no
+surprise, as he had not been able to imagine any possible explanation of
+Robert's conduct; and now that that gentleman frankly confessed that
+there was none, he accepted the confession as a bit of evidence in the
+case, for which he had waited merely as a matter of form. It was his
+duty now to talk again with his niece, but he was very tender always in
+his dealings with her, and felt an especial tenderness now that she must
+be suffering sorely. He quietly inquired where she was, and learning
+that she was in her own room, he refrained from summoning her himself,
+and gave her maid particular instructions to allow no one else to
+intrude upon her privacy upon any pretense whatsoever.
+
+"Lucy," he said, to the colored woman, "your Miss Sudie wishes to be
+alone for awhile. Sit down in the passage near her door, but don't
+knock, and don't allow any one else to knock. When she wishes to see any
+one she will open the door herself, and until then I do not want her
+disturbed."
+
+Then going into the dining-room, where Dick was polishing the mahogany
+with a large piece of cork, he said:
+
+"Dick, go out to the office and ask your Mas' Billy if he will be good
+enough to come to me in the library. I want to talk with him."
+
+When Billy came in his father showed him Robert's letter.
+
+"The thing looks very ugly," said the younger gentleman.
+
+"Very ugly, indeed," said his father; "but the confounded rascal holds
+up his head under it all, and acts as honorably in Sudie's case as if he
+had never acted otherwise than as a gentleman should. He is a puzzle to
+me. But, of course, this must end the matter. We can have nothing
+whatever to do with him hereafter."
+
+"But how is it, father, that they have managed to imprison him?"
+
+"I presume they have secured an order of arrest under that New York
+statute which seems to have been devised as a means of securing to
+creditors all the advantages of imprisonment for debt without shocking
+the better sense of the community, which is clearly against such
+imprisonment. The majority of people rarely ever pay any attention to
+the fact so long as they are spared the name of odious things. No
+debtors' prison would be allowed to stand in the United States, of
+course, but the common jails answer all purposes when a way for getting
+debtors locked up in them has been devised."
+
+"But how does it happen, father," asked Mr. Billy, "that only New York
+has such a statute?"
+
+"Well, in New York the commercial interest overrides every other, and
+commercial men naturally attach undue importance to the collection of
+debts, and look with favor upon everything which tends to facilitate
+it. These things always reflect the feeling rather than the opinion of a
+community. In new countries, where horses are of more importance than
+anything else, horse-stealing is pretty sure to be punished with death,
+either by law or by the mob, which is only public sentiment embodied.
+Here in Virginia you know how impossible it is to get anything like an
+effective statute for the suppression of dueling, simply because the
+ultimate public sentiment practically approves of personal warfare. But,
+I confess, I did not know that the New York statute could be stretched
+to cover a case like Robert's. As I understand it, there must be some
+evidence of fraud in the inception of the transaction."
+
+"They proceed upon affidavits, I believe," said Billy, "and when that is
+done it isn't hard to make out a case, if the attorney is unscrupulous
+enough."
+
+"That's true. But isn't it curious that Edwin should have proceeded so
+promptly to harsh measures? He is so mild of temper that this surprises
+me."
+
+"Cousin Edwin doesn't always act out his own character, you know,
+father. His wife is the stronger willed of the two."
+
+"True. I hadn't thought of that. However, it serves the young rascal
+right."
+
+At this point of the conversation Cousin Sudie's knock was heard at the
+inner door, and Col. Barksdale opening the outer one said:
+
+"You'd better go out this door, William. It would embarrass Sue to find
+you here just now."
+
+"Come in my daughter," he said, admitting Miss Sudie. "Sit down. I am
+greatly pained, on his account as well as yours, to find that Robert has
+no explanation to offer. But, of course, this ends it all, and you must
+take a little trip somewhere, my dear, until you forget all about it.
+Where shall we go?"
+
+"I do not care to go anywhere, Uncle Carter," replied the little maiden,
+without the faintest echo of a sob in her voice. "I am sorry for poor
+Robert, but not because I think him guilty of any dishonorable action,
+for indeed I do not."
+
+"But, my dear, it will never do----"
+
+"Pray hear me out, Uncle Carter, and then I will listen to anything you
+have to say. I love you as a father, as you know perfectly well. Indeed
+I have never known you as anything else. I have always obeyed you
+unquestioningly, and I shall not begin to disobey you now. I shall do
+precisely what you tell me to do, _so long as I remain in your house_."
+
+"What do you mean by that, daughter?" asked her uncle, startled by the
+singular emphasis which Miss Sudie gave to the last clause of the
+sentence.
+
+"Merely this, Uncle Carter. I cannot consent to do that which my
+conscience teaches me is a crime, even at your command; but while I
+remain at Shirley as a daughter of the house I must obey as a daughter.
+If you command me to do anything which I cannot do without sinning
+against my conscience, then I must not obey you, and when I can't obey
+you I must cease to be your daughter. I shall conceal nothing from you,
+Uncle Carter; you know that, and I beg of you don't command me to do
+the things which I must not do. I love you and it would kill me--no, it
+would not do that, but it would pain me more than I can possibly say, to
+leave Shirley."
+
+Col. Barksdale leaned his head sorrowfully upon his hand. He loved this
+girl and held her as his own. Moreover, he had solemnly promised his
+dying brother to care for her always as a father cares for his children,
+and an oath could not have been more sacred in his eyes than this
+promise was. Without raising his head he asked:
+
+"You mean, Sudie, that you will not accept Robert's release?"
+
+"Yes, uncle, that is what I mean." This was sorrowfully and gently said,
+but firmly too.
+
+"He has offered to release you; has he not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And in so offering, did he express or hint a wish that you should not
+accept his release?"
+
+"No. On the contrary he assumed that I would accept it, and that I must
+do so in justice to myself. Here is his letter. Read it if you please."
+
+Col. Barksdale read the letter, with which the reader is already
+familiar, and, handing it back, said:
+
+"A very proper and manly letter."
+
+"Because it came from a very proper and manly man," said Miss Sudie.
+
+"You don't believe he has been guilty of the dishonorable acts laid to
+his charge, then?"
+
+"Of the acts, yes. Of the dishonor, no," said the girl.
+
+"On what ground do you base your persistent good opinion of him?"
+
+"On my persistent faith in him."
+
+"Your faith is very unreasonable, my dear."
+
+"Perhaps so, but it exists nevertheless."
+
+"Have you answered his letter?"
+
+"Yes, sir; and I have brought my answer for you to read, if you care to
+do so," she said, taking her letter out of her desk, which lay in her
+lap, and giving it to her uncle, who read as follows:
+
+    "MY DEAR ROBERT:--I am not in the least surprised by your letter. I
+    knew you would offer to release me from my engagement, because I
+    knew you were a man of honor. I have never for a moment doubted
+    that, and I do not doubt it now. Your character weighs more with me
+    than any mere facts can. I know you are an honorable man, and
+    knowing that I shall not let other people's doubts upon the subject
+    govern my action. When I 'listened to your words of love, and gave
+    them a place in my heart,' you were, as you say, 'a gentleman
+    without reproach'; and the reproach which lies upon you now does not
+    make you less a gentleman. It is an unjust reproach, and your
+    manliness in bearing it and offering to accept its consequences,
+    only serves to mark you still more distinctly as a gentleman. Shall
+    I be less honorable, less fearlessly true than you? When I gave you
+    my heart and promised you my hand, you had friends in abundance. Now
+    that you have none, I have no idea of withdrawing either the gift or
+    the promise.
+
+    "You say you can never clear your name of the stain which is upon
+    it now. For that I am heartily sorry, for your sake, but as I know
+    that the stain does not rightly belong there it becomes my duty and
+    my pleasure to bear it with you. I shall retain my faith in you and
+    my love for you, and I shall profess them too on all proper
+    occasions, and when you claim me as your wife I shall hold up Mrs.
+    Robert Pagebrook's head as proudly as I now hold Susan Barksdale's.
+
+    "Under other circumstances I should have thought it unmaidenly to
+    write in this way, but there must be no doubt of my meaning now. If
+    you ever ask a release from your promise, with or without reason, I
+    trust you know me well enough to know that it will be granted--but
+    from my promise I shall ask none. Another reason for the frankness
+    of this letter is that I want you, in your trouble, to know how
+    implicitly I trust your honor; and I should certainly never trust
+    such a letter in any but the cleanest of hands.
+
+    "Uncle Carter will see this before it goes, and he will know, as it
+    is right that he should, that I have not availed myself of your
+    proffered release...."
+
+The omitted sentences with which the letter closed are not for our eyes.
+Even Colonel Barksdale refused to read them, feeling that they were
+sacred, and that the permission given him to read the letter extended no
+further than the end of the sentence last set down in the extract above
+given.
+
+Returning the sheet he said: "I suppose you have written this after
+giving the matter full consideration, daughter?"
+
+"I never act without knowing what I am doing, Uncle Carter."
+
+"Well, my child, I think you are wrong, but I shall not ask you to do
+anything which your conscience condemns. I shall not ask you to withhold
+your letter, or to alter it, but I would prefer that you hold it until
+to-morrow, so that you may be quite sure you want to send it as it is.
+Will you mind doing that?"
+
+"No, Uncle Carter. I will keep it till to-morrow, if you wish, but I
+shall not change my mind concerning it. You are very good to me. Thank
+you;" and kissing his forehead, she left him, not to return to her room
+as a more sentimental woman would have done, but to go about her daily
+duties, with a sober face, it is true, but with all her accustomed
+regularity and attention to business.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+_In which Miss Sudie Adopts the Socratic Method._
+
+
+When Miss Sudie left him Col. Barksdale again sent for his son and told
+him of that young woman's unreasonable determination.
+
+"I expected that, father, and am not at all surprised," said the young
+man.
+
+"Why, my son? Had you talked the matter over with her?"
+
+"No. But I know Sudie too well to expect her to give up her faith in Bob
+while he is under a cloud and in trouble too. She has a mighty good head
+on her shoulders; but what's a woman's head worth when her heart pulls
+the other way? She overrides her own reason as coolly as if it were
+worth just nothing at all, and puts everybody else's out of the way with
+the utmost indifference. I know her of old. She used to take my part
+that way whenever I got into a boyish scrape, and before she had done
+with it she always convinced me, along with everybody else, that I had
+done nothing to be ashamed of. The fact is, father, I like that in
+Sudie. She's the truest little woman I ever saw, and she sticks to her
+friends like mutton gravy to the roof of your mouth," said Billy,
+unable, even at such a time as this, to restrain his passion for strange
+metaphors.
+
+"The trait is a noble one, certainly," said the old gentleman; "but for
+that very reason, if for no other, we must do what we can to keep her
+from sacrificing herself to a noble faith in an unworthy man. Don't you
+think so?"
+
+"Without doubt. But what can we do? You say you do not feel free to
+control her."
+
+"We can at least do our duty. I have talked with her, and now I want you
+to do the same. She will not shun the conversation, I think, for she is
+a brave girl."
+
+"I will see what I can do, father," said the young man. "Possibly I may
+persuade her to let the matter rest where it is, for the present at
+least, and even that will be something gained."
+
+Col. Barksdale was right in thinking that Miss Sudie would not seek to
+avoid a conversation with Billy. On the contrary she wished especially
+to say something to this young gentleman, and for that very purpose she
+sought him in the office. He and she had been brought up as brother and
+sister, and there was no feeling of restraint between them now that they
+were grown man and woman.
+
+"Cousin Billy," she said, sitting down near him, "I want to talk with
+you about Robert. I want to remind you, if you will let me, of your duty
+to him."
+
+"What do you conceive my duty to be in the case, Sudie?" asked Billy.
+
+"To defend him," said Miss Sudie.
+
+"But how can I do that, Sudie, in face of the facts?"
+
+"You believe then that Robert Pagebrook, whom you know thoroughly, has
+done the dishonorable things laid to his charge?"
+
+"Well," said Billy, feeling himself hardly prepared for this kind of
+attack, "I confess I should never have thought him capable of doing such
+things."
+
+"Why would you never have thought him capable of doing them, Cousin
+Billy?"
+
+"O well, because he always seemed to be such an honorable fellow," said
+Billy.
+
+"You did believe him honorable, then?" asked this young female Socrates.
+
+"Certainly; you know that Sudie."
+
+"On what did you base that belief, Cousin Billy?"
+
+"Why, on his way of doing things, on my knowledge of him, of course;"
+replied Billy.
+
+"Well, then, is that knowledge of him of no value now?" asked Sudie.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I mean does your knowledge of Robert weigh nothing now? Are you ready
+to believe on imperfect evidence, that Robert Pagebrook, who you know
+was an honorable man, is not now an honorable man? Doesn't his character
+weigh anything with you? Do you believe his character has changed, or do
+you think it possible that he simulated that character and did it so
+perfectly as to deceive us all? Doesn't it seem more probable that there
+is some mistake about this business? In short, how can you believe
+Robert guilty of a thing which you know very well he wouldn't do for
+his head? If you 'wouldn't have believed it,' why do you believe it?"
+
+Mr. Billy was stunned. He had been prepared for tears. He had expected
+to find in Sudie an unreasoning faith. He had looked for an obstinate
+determination on her part to adhere to her purpose. But for this kind of
+illogical logic he had made no preparation whatever. It had never
+entered his head that Miss Sudie would seriously undertake to argue the
+matter. The evidence against Robert he had accepted as unquestionable,
+and he had not expected Miss Sudie to question it in this way.
+
+"But, Cousin Sudie, you overlook the fact that Robert has confessed the
+very thing which you say is unlikely."
+
+"No; he has not confessed anything of the sort. Indeed he seems to have
+carefully avoided doing so. In his letter to Uncle Carter he merely
+says, 'I can offer neither denial nor explanation of the facts alleged
+against me.' To me he only says, 'a stain is upon my name.' He nowhere
+says, 'I am guilty.'"
+
+"But, Sudie," said Billy, "if he a'n't guilty, why can't he offer either
+'denial or explanation'?"
+
+"That I do not know; but I don't find it half as hard to believe that
+there may be good reasons for that, as to believe that an honorable
+man--a man whom we both know to be an honorable one--has done a
+dishonorable thing."
+
+"But, Sudie, why didn't Bob borrow the money of father or of me, if he
+honestly couldn't pay? He knew we would gladly lend it to him."
+
+"I'm glad you mentioned that. If Robert had wanted to swindle anybody,
+how much easier it would have been for him to write to you or Uncle
+Carter, saying he couldn't pay and asking you to take up his protested
+draft for him. He knew you would have done it, and he could then have
+accomplished his purpose without any exposure. Almost any excuse would
+have satisfied you or Uncle Carter, and so the thing would have gone on
+for years. Wouldn't he have done exactly that, Cousin Billy, if he had
+wanted to swindle anybody? Men don't often covet a bad name for its own
+sake."
+
+"Clearly, Sudie, I am getting the worst of this argument. You are a
+better sophist than I ever gave you credit for being. But it's hard to
+believe that black is white. I'll tell you what I'll do, though, Sudie.
+I'll do my very best to believe that there is some sort of faint
+possibility that facts a'n't facts, and hold myself, as nearly as I can,
+in readiness to believe that something may turn up in Bob's favor. If
+anything were to turn up I'd be as glad of it as anybody."
+
+"But I'm not satisfied with that, Cousin Billy."
+
+"What more do you ask, Sudie?"
+
+"That you shall hold yourself in readiness to help turn something up
+whenever an opportunity offers. Keep a sharp lookout for things which
+may possibly have a bearing upon this matter, and follow up any clue you
+may get. Won't you do that for my sake, Cousin Billy?"
+
+"I'd do anything for your sake, Sudie, and I'd give a hundred dollars
+for your faith."
+
+And so ended the conversation. Mr. Billy, it must be confessed, had
+done little toward the accomplishment of the task he had set himself.
+But as he himself put it: "What on earth was a fellow to do with a faith
+which made incontestable truths out of impossibilities, and scattered
+facts before it like a flock of partridges?" Mr. Billy fully appreciated
+the unreasonableness of Miss Sudie's logic, and yet, in spite of all, he
+could not help entertaining a sort of half hope that something would
+occur to vindicate Robert--a hope born of nothing more substantial than
+Miss Sudie's enthusiastic belief in her lover.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Accepts an Invitation to Lunch and another Invitation._
+
+
+On the morning after Robert's incarceration, his attorney came at the
+appointed hour for the purpose of preparing the papers on which
+application was to be made for his discharge.
+
+"I have the affidavits all ready, I believe, Mr. Pagebrook, and we have
+only to make a complete list of your property."
+
+"That will be easily done, sir," said Robert, with a feeling of grim
+amusement; "as I have literally nothing except my trunk and its
+contents."
+
+"You have your claim on that bank for money deposited. I suppose that
+must be included, though it is only a _chose_ in action."
+
+"O put it in, by all means," said Robert. "I do not wish to misrepresent
+anything or to withhold anything. I only wish the _chose_ in action, as
+you call it, were of sufficient value to discharge the debt. I should
+then quit here free from all indebtedness, except to you for your fee;
+and should not have this thing to pay.'
+
+"Your discharge, I think, will free you, in law, from----"
+
+"But it will not free me in honor sir. It will give me time, however;
+and the very first use I shall make of that time will be to earn the
+money with which to pay off this, my only debt. I should never ask a
+discharge at all if the asking supposed any purpose on my part to avoid
+the payment of the debt. Pardon me; this talk must sound odd to you,
+coming from a man in my present position. I forgot that I am an
+absconding debtor. You will think my talk a cheap kind of honesty,
+costing nothing."
+
+"No, Pagebrook--if you will allow me to drop the 'Mister'--I should
+trust you in any transaction, though I have not known you a week. I
+don't believe you are an absconding debtor, and I'm not going to believe
+it on the strength of any oaths Messrs. Steel, Flint & Sharp may make."
+As he said this the young lawyer took Robert's hand, and Robert found
+himself wholly unable to utter a word by way of reply. He did not want
+to shed tears in the presence of his jail attendants, but the lawyer saw
+them standing in his eyes, and prevented any effort at replying by
+turning at once to the matter in hand.
+
+"Come, Pagebrook," he said, "this isn't business. Let me see; what bank
+was it that you deposited with?"
+
+"The Essex," said Robert.
+
+"The Essex!" said the lawyer. "What was that I saw in the Tribune this
+morning about that bank? I think it was the Essex. Let me see;" running
+his eye over the columns of the newspaper, which he had taken from his
+pocket.
+
+"Ah! here it is. By George! My dear Pagebrook, I congratulate you. Your
+bank has resumed. See, here is the item:
+
+"'PHILADELPHIA, DEC. 3D.--The Essex Bank, of this city, which suspended
+payment some weeks since, will resume business to-morrow. Its affairs
+were found to be in a very favorable condition, and at a meeting of the
+stockholders, held to-day, the deficit in its assets was covered, and
+its capital made good by subscription. It is not thought that any run
+will be made upon it, but ample preparations have been made to meet such
+a contingency.'
+
+"Again I congratulate you, right heartily."
+
+"This means then, that my sixteen hundred dollars--that was the total
+amount of my deposit--is intact, and that I may check against it as soon
+as I choose, does it?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then let us suspend our preparations for securing my release. I will
+pay out of this instead of begging out. I will draw at once for enough
+to cover this debt and your fees, and ask you to put the draft into bank
+for collection. We will have returns by the day after to-morrow,
+doubtless, and I shall then go out of here with my head up."
+
+"We'll end this business sooner than that, Pagebrook," said the lawyer.
+"Draw your draft, I'll indorse it, take it to the bank where I deposit,
+get it cashed at once, and have you out of here in time for a two
+o'clock lunch. You'll lunch with me, of course."
+
+"Pardon me, but you have no means of knowing that I have any money in
+that bank," said Robert.
+
+"Yes, indeed I have."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Your word. I told you I would trust you."
+
+Robert looked at the man a moment, and then taking his hand, said:
+
+"I accept your confidence frankly. Thank you. Draw the draft, please,
+and I will sign it."
+
+The draft was soon drawn, and at two o'clock that day--just twenty-four
+hours after his arrest--Robert sat down to lunch with his friend, in a
+down-town eating-house.
+
+While the two gentlemen were engaged with their lunch, Robert's friend
+Dudley, who had been eating a chop at the farther end of the room,
+espied his acquaintance, and approaching him said:
+
+"How are you, Pagebrook? Are you specially engaged for this afternoon?"
+
+"No, I believe not," said Robert. "I have nothing to do except to finish
+an article which I want to offer you to-morrow, and I can do that
+to-night."
+
+"Suppose you come up to the office, then, after you finish your lunch. I
+want to talk with you."
+
+"I will be there within half an hour, if that will suit you," said
+Robert.
+
+"Very well; I'll expect you."
+
+Accordingly, Robert bade his friend adieu after lunch, and went
+immediately to the editor's room.
+
+Mr. Dudley closed the door, first saying to his messenger, who sat in
+the anteroom;
+
+"I shall be busy for some time, Eddie, and can't see anybody. If any
+one calls, tell him I am closeted with a gentleman on important business
+and can see nobody. Now, Pagebrook," he resumed, taking his seat, "you
+ought to quit teaching."
+
+"Why?" asked Robert.
+
+"Well, you're a born writer certainly, and if I am not greatly mistaken,
+a born journalist too. You have a knack of knowing just what points
+people want to hear about. I've been struck with that in every article
+you have written for me, and especially in this last one. Do you know
+I've rejected no less than a dozen well-written articles on that very
+subject, just because they treated every phase of it except the right
+one, and didn't come within a mile of that. Now you've hit it exactly,
+as you always do. You've got hold of precisely the things that nobody
+knows anything about and everybody wants to know all about, and that's
+journalism."
+
+"Thank you," said Robert. "You really think, then, that I might make
+myself a successful journalist if I were to try?"
+
+"I know you would. You have precisely the right sort of ideas. You
+discriminate between the things that are wanted and the things that are
+not. I have long since discovered that this thing that men call writing
+ability and journalistic ability isn't like anything else. It crops out
+where you would never look for it, and where you think it ought to be it
+isn't. You can't coax or nurse it into existence to save your life. If a
+man has it he has it, and if he hasn't it he hasn't it, and nobody can
+give it to him. It isn't contagious, and I honestly believe it isn't
+acquirable. And that's why I'm certain of you. You've shown that you
+have it, and one showing is as good as a hundred."
+
+"I am greatly pleased," said Robert, "to know that you think so well of
+me in this respect, for I have resigned my professorship and determined
+to make my way, to the best of my ability, as a journalist, hereafter?"
+
+"You have?"
+
+"Yes; I sent my letter of resignation yesterday."
+
+"I'm heartily glad of it, old fellow, and selfishly glad, too, for it
+was to persuade you to do that that I sat down to talk to you. You see
+my health is not very good lately; the fact is I have been using the
+spur too much, and am pretty well run down with overwork. The publishers
+have been urging me to get an assistant, and the trouble is to get one
+who can really relieve me of a share of the work. I can get plenty of
+people to undertake it, but I have to go over their work to be sure of
+it, and it's easier to do it myself from the first. Now you are just the
+man I want, if you can stand the salary. The publishers will let me pay
+forty dollars a week. You can make more than that from the outside, I
+suppose, but it's better to be in a regular situation, I think. How
+would you like to try the thing?"
+
+"Nothing could be more to my taste. I think I should like this better
+than daily paper work, and besides it gives one a better opportunity for
+growth. But before we talk any more about it I feel myself in honor
+bound to tell you what has happened to me lately. If you care then to
+repeat your offer, I shall gladly accept it, but if you feel the
+slightest hesitation about it, I shall not blame you for not renewing
+it."
+
+And Robert told him everything, but Dudley declined to believe that
+there had been any just cause for the arrest, or that Robert had in any
+way violated the strictest canons of honor.
+
+This young man seemed, indeed, to be perfect master of the art of making
+people believe in him in spite of the most damaging facts. Miss Sudie's
+faith in him never wavered for an instant. Even Billy had to keep a
+synopsis of the evidence against his cousin constantly in mind to keep
+himself from "believing that he couldn't see through glass," as he
+phrased it. The New York lawyer, summoned to get the young man out of
+jail, backed his faith in him, as we have seen, by indorsing his draft
+for several hundred dollars; and now Dudley, after hearing a plain
+statement of the facts from Robert's own lips, dismissed them as of no
+consequence, and set up his own unreasonable faith as a complete answer
+to them. He renewed his offer, and Robert accepted it, becoming office
+editor of the weekly paper for which he had recently been writing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+_Major Pagebrook asserts himself._
+
+
+It now becomes necessary to a proper understanding of this history that
+we shall go back a day or two, to the day, in fact, on which Robert's
+letters were received at Shirley. I said there were three New York
+letters in the mail-bag thrown off at the Court House that morning. The
+third letter there referred to was from the law firm of Steel, Flint &
+Sharp. It was addressed to Edwin Pagebrook, Esq., and quite by accident
+it fell into that gentleman's hands. I say by accident, because Cousin
+Sarah Ann had taken unusual precautions to prevent precisely this
+result. After writing to the lawyers, it occurred to that estimable lady
+that a reply would come in due time, and that as she had taken the
+liberty of signing her husband's name to her letter, the reply would be
+addressed to him rather than to her, and she greatly feared that he
+would have an opportunity to read it. She particularly wished that this
+should not happen. She knew her mild-mannered and long-suffering husband
+thoroughly, and, while she felt free to torment him in various ways, she
+had learned, from one or two bits of experience, that it was not the
+part of wisdom to tax his endurance too far. Accordingly she took pains
+to prevent him from visiting the Court House while she was expecting the
+letter. She laid various plans for the purpose of keeping him occupied
+on the plantation every day, and took care to secure the first look into
+the family postbag whenever the servant returned with it. On the morning
+in question, however, as Maj. Pagebrook was riding over his plantation,
+inspecting work, he met a neighbor who was going to the Court House, and
+having some small matters to attend to there he determined to join the
+neighbor in his ride. Upon his arrival he called for his letters, and so
+it came about that the note in which Messrs. Steel, Flint & Sharp,
+"begged to inform him" of Robert's arrest in accordance with his
+instructions, fell into his hands. At first he was puzzled, and thought
+there must have been some mistake, but after awhile a glimmering of the
+truth dawned upon him, and in his smothered way he was exceedingly
+angry. He had condemned Robert's misconduct as severely as anybody, but
+had never dreamed of proceeding to harsh measures in the matter.
+Besides, it was only the day before that Robert's remittance of one
+hundred dollars had come to him, and, in acknowledging its receipt, he
+had partially satisfied his resentment by telling his cousin "what he
+thought of him," and to learn now that the young man was in jail for the
+fault, and apparently at his behest, was sorely displeasing to him. And
+worse than all, his wife had taken an unwarrantable liberty in the
+affair, and this he determined to resent. He mounted his horse,
+therefore, and was on the point of starting homeward when Dr. Harrison
+accosted him.
+
+"Good morning, Maj. Pagebrook. May I speak to you a moment?"
+
+"Good morning, Charles."
+
+"Has there been any administrator appointed for Ewing's estate?"
+
+"No, not yet. I reckon I must take out papers next court day, as he was
+of age when he died. It's only a matter of form, I reckon, as there are
+no debts."
+
+"Well, my only reason for asking is I hold Ewing's note for two hundred
+and twenty-five dollars. I'm in no hurry, only I wanted to act regularly
+and get it in shape by presenting it."
+
+"You have Ewing's note? Why, what is it for?" asked Major Pagebrook in
+astonishment.
+
+"Borrowed money," answered the doctor.
+
+"Borrowed money? But how did he come to borrow it?"
+
+"Well, the fact is Ewing got to playing bluff with Foggy one day just
+before he got sick, and Foggy fleeced him pretty badly, and I lent him
+the money to pay out with. He didn't want to owe it to Foggy, you know."
+
+"Have you the note with you?" asked Maj. Pagebrook.
+
+"No. It's in my office; but I can get it if you'd like to look at it."
+
+"No; it's no matter, if you can tell me the date."
+
+"It bears date November 19th, I think."
+
+"Just one day after he came of age," said Maj. Pagebrook. "Well, I'll
+see about it, Charles," and with this the two gentlemen separated.
+
+Major Pagebrook rode homeward, meditating upon the occurrences of the
+morning. He had determined to manage his own business hereafter without
+tolerating improper interference upon the part of his wife, and he was
+in position to do this, too, except with regard to the home plantation,
+which, as Ewing had informed Robert, was held in Cousin Sarah Ann's
+name. Major Pagebrook was a quiet man and a long-suffering one. He liked
+nothing so much as peace, and to keep the peace he had always yielded to
+the more aggressive nature of his wife. But he felt now that the time
+had come for him to assert his supremacy in business matters, and he
+determined to assert it very quietly but very positively. One point was
+as good as another, he thought, for the purpose, and this
+newly-discovered debt of Ewing's gave him an excellent occasion for the
+self-assertion upon which he had resolved. Several times of late he had
+mildly suggested to Cousin Sarah Ann the propriety of putting Ewing's
+papers into Billy Barksdale's hands for examination, so that the boy's
+affairs might be properly and legally adjusted. To every such suggestion
+Cousin Sarah Ann, who carried the key of Ewing's portable desk, had
+turned a deaf ear, saying that there were no debts one way or the other,
+and that she "wouldn't have anybody overhauling the poor boy's private
+papers." Now, however, Major Pagebrook had made up his mind to put the
+desk into Billy's hands without asking the excellent lady's consent.
+
+"Don't take my horse, Jim," he said to his servant upon arriving at
+home, "I am going to ride again presently. Just tie him to the rack till
+I want him."
+
+Going into the house, he met Cousin Sarah Ann, to whom he said:
+
+"Sarah Ann, I will write my own letters and attend to my own business
+hereafter, and I'll thank you not to sign my name for me again. You have
+placed me in a very awkward position, and I can't explain it to anybody
+without exposing you. Understand me now, please. I will not tolerate any
+such interference in future."
+
+Ordinarily Cousin Sarah Ann would have been ready enough with a reply to
+such a remark as this, but just now she was fairly frightened by her
+husband's tone and manner. She saw at a glance that he was in very
+serious earnest, and she knew him well enough to know that it would not
+do to provoke him further. She was always afraid of him, even when she
+was riding rough-shod over him. When he seemed most submissive and she
+most aggressive, she was in the habit of scanning his countenance very
+carefully, as an engineer watches his steam gauge. When she saw steam
+rising, she usually had the safety valve--a flood of tears--ready for
+immediate use. Just now she saw indications of an explosion, which
+appalled her, and she dared not face the danger for a moment. Without
+reply, therefore, she sank, weeping, into the nearest chair, while her
+husband walked into her room, opened her wardrobe, and took from it the
+little desk in which his son's letters and papers were locked. Coming
+back to her he said:
+
+"I will take the key to this desk, if you please."
+
+She looked up with a frightened countenance, and asked:
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I want to open the desk."
+
+"What are you going to do with it?"
+
+"I'm going to put it into my lawyer's hands."
+
+"Wait then. I must look over the papers first."
+
+"No; Billy will do that."
+
+"But there's some of mine in it, private ones."
+
+"It doesn't matter. Billy will sort them and return yours to you."
+
+"But he _sha'n't_ look at my papers."
+
+"Give me the key, Sarah Ann."
+
+"I can't. It's lost."
+
+"Very well, then," said he, taking his knife from his pocket, breaking
+the frail lock, and walking out of the house without another word.
+
+[Illustration: "VERY WELL, THEN."]
+
+Cousin Sarah Ann was thoroughly overcome. She knew that her husband had
+received the reply to her letter, which she had meant to receive
+herself, and she knew too that her mastery over him was at an end, for
+the present at least. Worse than all, she knew that the desk and its
+contents would inevitably go into Billy Barksdale's hands, and she had
+her own reasons for thinking this the sorest affliction possible to her.
+There was no help for it now, however, and she could do nothing except
+throw herself on her bed and shed tears of bitter mortification,
+vexation, and dread.
+
+Meanwhile Major Pagebrook galloped over to Shirley, with the desk under
+his arm. The conversation already reported between Billy and Miss Sudie,
+was hardly more than finished when he dismounted and walked into the
+young lawyer's office.
+
+He opened his business by telling Billy about the note held by Dr.
+Harrison.
+
+"I don't understand it," he said. "Harrison says the note is dated
+November 19th, which was just one day after Ewing came of age, and I
+remember that Ewing was taken sick on the morning of his birthday--very
+sick, as you know, and never left his bed afterwards."
+
+"When was Ewing at the Court House last?" asked Billy.
+
+"Not since the day Robert left."
+
+"Did he owe Harrison any money that you know of?"
+
+"No; but Harrison says Foggy won that much from him, and he had to
+borrow to pay it."
+
+"You are sure, however, that Ewing could not possibly have had a chance
+to sign the note after he came of age?"
+
+"Of course he couldn't. He was delirious from the very first, and we
+never left him."
+
+"I think I see how it is," said Billy. "Foggy and Charley Harrison are
+too intimate for any straight dealings. I reckon Charley was as deeply
+interested in the winnings as Foggy was, but they have made Ewing
+execute the note to Charley for money borrowed to pay Foggy with so that
+it would be legally good. They made him date it ahead, too, so that it
+would appear to have been executed after Ewing came of age. They didn't
+anticipate his sickness, and they haven't thought to compare dates. I
+think we can beat them this time, when they get ready to sue."
+
+"But we mustn't let them sue, Billy," said Major Pagebrook. "I would
+never consent to plead the baby act or to get out of it by any legal
+quibble if the signature is genuine, as I reckon it is. That wouldn't be
+honorable. No, I shall pay the note off; and I only want to know whether
+I must charge it to Ewing's estate or not, after taking out
+administration papers. If I can, I ought to, in justice to the other
+children. If I can't, I must pay it myself. Look into it, please, and
+let me know about it. I have brought you Ewing's desk, so you can look
+over all his papers and attend to all his affairs for me. I want to get
+everything straight." So saying he took his leave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+_Mr. Barksdale, the Younger, Goes upon a Journey._
+
+
+Not until the next morning did Mr. Billy find time to examine the papers
+in Ewing's desk. Indeed, even then he deemed the matter one of very
+little consequence, inasmuch as the papers, whatever they might happen
+to be, were probably of no legal importance, being of necessity the work
+of a minor. There might be memoranda there, however, and possibly a will
+disposing of personal property, which, under the law of Virginia, would
+be good if executed by a minor over eighteen years of age.
+
+In view of these possibilities, therefore, Billy sat down to the task of
+examining the papers, which were pretty numerous, such as they were.
+After awhile he became interested in the very miscellaneousness of the
+assortment. Little memoranda were there--of the date on which a horse
+had been shod; of the amount paid for a new pair of boots; of the times
+at which the boy had written letters to his friends, and of a hundred
+other unimportant things. There were bits of poor verse, too, such as
+may be found in the desk of almost every boy. Old letters, full of
+nothing, were there in abundance, but nothing which could possibly be of
+any value to anybody. On all the letters, except one, was marked, in
+Ewing's handwriting, "To be burned without reading, in case of my
+death." The one exception attracted Billy's attention, and opening it,
+he was surprised to find Robert Pagebrook's name appended to it. It was,
+in fact, the letter which Cousin Sarah Ann had opened during her son's
+last illness. After reading it Mr. Billy sat down to think. Presently,
+looking at his watch, he went to the door and called a servant.
+
+"Go and ask your Miss Sudie to put two or three shirts, and some socks
+and handkerchiefs into my satchel for me, and then you go and tell
+Polidore to saddle Graybeard and the bay, and get ready to go with me to
+the Court House directly. Do you hear?"
+
+The servant made no answer to the question with which Mr. Billy closed
+his speech. Indeed that gentleman expected none. Virginians always ask
+"do you hear?" when they give instructions to servants, and they never
+get or expect an answer. Without the question, however, they would never
+secure attention to the instruction. To say, "do so and so," without
+adding, "do you hear?" would be the idlest possible waste of words on
+the part of any one giving an order to the average Virginian house
+servant.
+
+Mr. Billy was in the habit of making sudden journeys on business,
+without giving the slightest warning to the family except that contained
+in a request that his satchel or saddle-bags be packed, so that Miss
+Sudie was not in the least surprised when his present message came to
+her. She was surprised, however, when, instead of riding away without a
+word of farewell, as he usually did, he came into the house, and,
+kissing her tenderly, said:
+
+"Keep your spirits up, Sudie, and don't let things worry you too much.
+I'm going to Richmond on the two o'clock train, and don't know how long
+I'll be gone. Good-by, little girl," and he kissed her again. All this
+was quite out of character, Miss Sudie felt. Billy was affectionate
+enough, at all times, but he detested leave-takings, and always avoided
+them when he could. To seek one was quite unlike him, and Miss Sudie was
+puzzled to know what prompted him to do it on this particular occasion.
+He rode away, however, without offering any explanation whatever.
+
+Mr. Billy went to Richmond, as he had said he intended doing, but he did
+not remain there an hour. He went to the cashier of a bank, a gentleman
+with whom he was well acquainted, got from him a letter of introduction
+to a prominent man in Philadelphia, and left for that city on the first
+train.
+
+Arriving in Philadelphia about nine o'clock the next day, Mr. Billy ate
+a hasty breakfast and proceeded to the little collegiate institute in
+which Robert had once been a professor, as the reader will remember.
+Introducing himself to President Currier he asked for a private
+interview, and was invited for the purpose into Dr. Currier's inner
+office.
+
+"I believe, doctor," he said, after telling that gentleman who he was,
+"that there was something due Professor Pagebrook on his salary at the
+time his connection with this college terminated, was there not?"
+
+"Yes, sir; there was about three hundred dollars due him, if I remember
+correctly, but it has been paid, I think."
+
+"Have you any way of ascertaining precisely how and when?" asked Billy.
+
+"Yes; my own letter-book should show. Let me see," turning over the
+leaves, "Ah, here it is. A draft for the amount was sent to him by
+letter on the eighth of November, addressed to ---- Court House,
+Virginia."
+
+"Thank you," said Billy. "The draft, I suppose, was regular New York
+Exchange?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Would you mind telling me from what bank you bought it, and to whose
+order, in the first place, it was made payable? Pardon my asking such
+questions, but I need this information for use in the cause of justice."
+
+"O you need offer no apology, I assure you, sir," returned the
+president. "I have nothing to conceal in the matter. The draft was drawn
+by the Susquehanna Bank, and to my order, I think. Yes, I remember
+indorsing it."
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Billy. "You are very courteous, and I am indebted
+to you for information which I should have found it difficult to get
+from any other source. Good morning, sir."
+
+Leaving the college, which was situated in one of the suburbs, Mr. Billy
+took a carriage and drove into the city. There he delivered his letter
+of introduction, and secured from the gentleman to whom it was
+addressed a personal introduction to the cashier of the Susquehanna
+Bank. To this latter person he said:
+
+"I am looking up evidence in a case, and, if I am not greatly mistaken,
+you can help me in an effort to set a wrong right. On the eighth of last
+month you sold a draft on New York for three hundred dollars, payable to
+the order of David Currier. Now, in the ordinary course of business I
+suppose that draft has been returned to you after payment."
+
+"Yes, if it was paid before the first of the month. We settle with our
+New York correspondents once a month. I'll look at the last batch of
+returned checks and see."
+
+"Thank you. I should be glad to see the indorsements on the paper, if
+possible."
+
+The cashier went to the vault, and returning with a large bundle of
+canceled checks soon found the one wanted. Billy turned it over and
+examined the indorsements on the back. Then, turning to the banker, he
+asked:
+
+"Would it be possible for me to get temporary possession of this draft
+by depositing the amount of its face with you until its return?"
+
+"You merely wish it for use in evidence?" asked the banker.
+
+"That's all," said Billy.
+
+"You can take it, then, without a deposit, Mr. Barksdale. It is of no
+value now, but we usually keep our canceled exchange, so I shall be
+obliged if you will return this when you've done with it."
+
+This was precisely what Robert had come to Philadelphia to secure, and
+after finding what the indorsements on the draft were, he would
+willingly have paid its face outright, if that had been necessary, to
+get possession of it.
+
+Who knows what the value of a bit of writing may be, even after its
+purpose has to all appearance been fully answered? I know a great
+commercial house in which it is an inexorable law that no bit of paper
+once written on in the way of business shall ever be destroyed, however
+valueless it may seem to be; and on more than one occasion the wisdom of
+the rule has been strikingly made manifest. So it was with this paid,
+canceled, and returned draft. Worthless in all eyes but his, to Billy it
+was far more precious than if it had been crisp and new, and payable to
+his own order.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+_The younger Mr. Barksdale Asks to be put upon His Oath._
+
+
+It was nearly noon when the train which brought Billy Barksdale back
+from Philadelphia stopped at the Court House, and that young gentleman
+went from the station immediately to the court room, where the Circuit
+Court, as he knew, was in session.
+
+"Has the grand jury been impaneled yet?" he asked the commonwealth's
+attorney.
+
+"Yes; it has just gone out, but as usual there is nothing for it to do,
+so it will report 'no bills' in an hour or so, I reckon."
+
+"Have me sworn and sent before it then," said Billy. "I think I can put
+it in the way of finding something to do."
+
+The official was astonished, but he lost no time in complying with the
+rather singular request. Billy went before the grand jury, and remained
+there for a considerable time. This was a very unusual occurrence in
+every way, and it quickly produced a buzz of excitement in and about the
+building. There was rarely ever anything for grand juries to do in this
+quiet county, and when there was anything it usually hinged upon some
+publicly known and talked of matter. Everybody knew in advance what it
+was about, and the probable result was easy to predict. Now, however,
+all was mystery. A prominent young lawyer had been sworn and sent before
+the grand jury at his own request, and the length of time during which
+he was detained there effectually dispelled the belief which at first
+obtained, that he merely wanted to secure the presentment of some
+negligent road overseer. Even the commonwealth's attorney could not
+manage to look wise enough, as he sat there stroking his beard, to
+deceive anybody into the belief that he knew what was going on. The
+minutes were very long ones. The excitement soon extended beyond the
+court house, and everybody in the village was on tiptoe with suppressed
+curiosity. The court room was full to overflowing when Billy came
+quietly out of the grand jury's apartment and took his seat in the bar
+as if nothing out of the ordinary course of affairs had happened.
+
+It did not tend to allay the excitement, certainly, when the deputy
+sheriff on duty at the door of the jury room beckoned to the
+commonwealth's attorney and that gentleman went up-stairs three steps at
+a time, disappearing within the chamber devoted to the secret inquest
+and remaining there. When half an hour later Major Edwin Pagebrook was
+called, sworn and sent up as a witness, wild rumors of a secret crime
+among the better classes began to circulate freely in the crowd,
+starting from nowhere and gradually taking definite shape as they spread
+from one to another of the eager villagers.
+
+The excitement was now absolutely painful in its intensity, and even the
+judge himself began walking restlessly back and forth in the space set
+apart for the bench.
+
+When Major Pagebrook came out of the room with a downcast face he went
+immediately home, and Rosenwater, a merchant in the village, was called.
+When he came out, distinct efforts were made to worm the secret from
+him. He was mindful of his oath, however, and refused to say anything.
+
+Finally the members of the grand jury marched slowly down stairs, and
+took their stand in front of the clerk's desk.
+
+"Poll the grand jury," said the judge. When that ceremony was over, the
+question which everybody in the building had been mentally asking for
+hours was formulated by the court.
+
+"Gentlemen of the grand jury, have you any presentments to make?"
+
+"We have, your honor," answered the foreman.
+
+"Read the report of the grand jury, Mr. Clerk."
+
+The official rose and after adjusting his spectacles very deliberately,
+read aloud:
+
+"We, the grand jury, on our oaths present Dr. Charles Harrison and James
+Madison Raves, for forgery and for a conspiracy to defraud Edwin
+Pagebrook, on or about the tenth day of November in this present year
+within the jurisdiction of this honorable court."
+
+The crowd was fairly stunned. Nobody knew or could guess what it meant.
+The commonwealth's attorney was the first to speak.
+
+"As the legal representative of the commonwealth, I move the court to
+issue a warrant for the arrest of Charles Harrison and James Madison
+Raves, and I ask that the grand jury be instructed to return to their
+room and to put their indictments in proper form."
+
+The two men thus accused of crime being present in court were taken in
+charge by the sheriff.
+
+"If the commonwealth's attorney has no further motions to make in this
+case," said the judge, "the court will take a recess, in order to give
+time for the preparation of indictments in due form."
+
+"May it please the court," said the official addressed, "I have only to
+ask that your honor will instruct the sheriff to separate the two
+prisoners during the recess. I do not know that this is necessary, but
+it may tend to further the interests of justice."
+
+"The court sees no reason to refuse the request," said the judge. "Mr.
+Sheriff, you will see that your two prisoners are not allowed to confer
+together in any way until after the reassembling of the court, at four
+o'clock."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+_Mr. William Barksdale Explains._
+
+
+Precisely what Dr. Harrison's emotions were when he found himself in the
+sheriff's hands, nobody is likely ever to know, as that gentleman was
+always of taciturn mood in matters closely concerning himself, and on
+the present occasion was literally dumb.
+
+With Foggy the case was different. He was always a prudent man. He was
+not given to the taking of unnecessary risks for the sake of abstract
+principles. He made no pretensions to the possession of heroic fortitude
+under affliction, and he had no special reputation for high-toned honor
+to lose. The clutch of the law was to him an uncomfortable one, and he
+was prepared to escape it by any route which might happen to be open to
+him. This disposition upon his part was an important factor in the
+problem which Billy had set out to solve. He knew Foggy was a moral
+coward, and upon his cowardice he depended, in part, for the success of
+his undertaking.
+
+As soon as court adjourned the commonwealth's attorney requested the
+members of the grand jury to make themselves as comfortable as might be
+while he should be engaged in the preparation of formal indictments
+against the two prisoners. Going then to his office he closeted himself
+with Billy Barksdale, who had preceded him thither by his request.
+
+"You'll help me with this prosecution, won't you Billy?" he asked.
+
+"With as good a will as I ever carried to a fish fry," said Billy.
+
+"Well, then," said the attorney, "tell me just how the thing stands. I
+confess I'm all in a jumble about it. Begin at the beginning and tell
+the whole story. Then we'll know where we stand and how to proceed."
+
+Accordingly Billy recounted the history of the protested draft; the
+promise to pay; its nonfulfillment and the trouble which ensued. He then
+continued:
+
+"My suspicions as to the real facts of the case were aroused by
+accident. Maj. Pagebrook consulted me a few days ago about a note signed
+by Ewing Pagebrook, drawn in favor of Charley Harrison, which, Harrison
+said, had been given him when he advanced money to Ewing with which to
+pay a gambling debt to Foggy. That note was evidently dated ahead, as it
+bore date of November 19th, one day after Ewing attained his majority,
+when, in fact, the boy was taken ill on the morning of his twenty-first
+birthday, and never left his bed afterwards. This confirmed me in the
+belief that Foggy and Harrison were confederates in their gambling
+operations. They fleeced the boy, and then had him borrow the money with
+which to pay from Harrison, and give a note for it, so as to make the
+consideration good; and they took pains to have him date it ahead, so as
+to get rid of the minority trouble. This by itself would have amounted
+to nothing, but in looking over Ewing's papers I found a letter there
+from Bob Pagebrook, which I happened accidentally to know was received
+during Ewing's illness. Here it is. I'll read it.
+
+"'MY DEAR EWING:--I can not tell you how grieved I am at the news your
+letter brings me. I can ill afford to lose the three hundred dollars
+which I intrusted to you to hand to your father, and even if you do make
+it good when you come of age, as you so solemnly promise me you will, I
+am, meanwhile, placed in a very awkward position with regard to it. I
+promised your father to pay him that money by a certain day, and was
+greatly pleased, as you know, when, upon arriving at the Court House on
+my way north, I found the remittance awaiting me there, as it enabled me
+to make the payment in advance of the time agreed upon. When I, in my
+haste to catch the train, gave you the check to give to your father, I
+dismissed the subject from my mind, and set about the work of repairing
+my fortunes with a light heart, little thinking that matters would turn
+out as they have.
+
+"'But while I am sorely annoyed by the fact that this may place me in an
+awkward position, I am willing to trust my reputation in your hands.
+Remember that you are now bound in honor, not merely to pay this money
+as soon as you shall attain your majority, but also to protect me from
+undeserved disgrace by frankly stating the facts of the case to your
+father in the event of his entertaining doubts of my integrity. This
+much you are in honor bound to do in any case, and you have also given
+me your word that you will do it. If your father shall seem disposed to
+think me not unduly dilatory in the matter of payment, you need tell him
+nothing. You may spare yourself that mortification, send me the money,
+and I will remit it to him, merely saying that unavoidable circumstances
+which I am not at liberty to explain have prevented the earlier payment
+which I intended to make.
+
+"'But in agreeing to do this, Ewing, I am moved solely by my desire to
+shield you from disgrace and consequent ruin. When I gave you that money
+for your father it was a sacred trust, and in converting it to other
+uses you not only wronged me, but you made yourself guilty of something
+very like a crime. Pardon me if I speak plainly, for I am speaking only
+for your good and I speak only to you. I want you to understand how
+terribly wrong and altogether dishonorable your act was, so that you may
+never be guilty of another such. I am not disposed to reproach you, but
+I do want to warn you. You are the son of a gentleman, and you have no
+right to bring disgrace upon your father's name. You ought not to
+gamble, and if you do gamble you have no right to surrender your honor
+in payment of your losses. I promise you, as you ask me to do, that I
+will not tell what you have done; and you know I never break a promise
+under any circumstances whatever. But in promising this I place my own
+reputation in your keeping, depending upon you, in the event of
+necessity, to frankly acknowledge your fault, so that I may not appear
+to have run away from a debt which in fact I have paid.'
+
+"When I read that letter," continued Billy, "I began to see daylight.
+Bob had given his word of honor to Ewing not to expose him. Ewing had
+died before he could make the money matter good, and Bob, like the
+great, big, honorable, dear old fellow that he is, allowed himself to go
+to jail and bear the reputation of an absconding debtor, rather than
+break his promise to the dead boy. He paid the money again, too. I
+suspected, of course, that Foggy and Charley Harrison were mixed up in
+the matter some way, particularly as the very last visit Ewing ever made
+to the Court House was made on the day that Bob went away. I went to
+Philadelphia, and there found the canceled draft, drawn in favor of
+David Currier; indorsed to Robert Pagebrook; and by him indorsed to
+Edwin Pagebrook. Then followed, as you know, an indorsement to James M.
+Raves, signed 'E. Pagebrook.' That, of course, was written by Ewing, who
+at the suggestion of these two men made the draft over to them--or to
+one of them--by signing his own name, which happened, when written with
+the initial only, to be the same as his father's. Foggy then indorsed it
+to Harrison, and he, being respectable, had no difficulty in getting
+Rosenwater to cash it for him. It never entered Rosenwater's head, of
+course, to question any of the signatures back of Harrison's. Now my
+theory is that this draft did not cover Ewing's losses by two hundred
+and twenty-five dollars; and so the two thrifty gentlemen made the boy
+execute the note that Harrison holds for that amount, dating it ahead,
+and making it for borrowed money."
+
+"You're right, Barksdale, without a doubt," said the commonwealth's
+attorney; "but how are we going to make a jury see it? There's plenty of
+evidence to found an indictment on, but I'm afraid there a'n't enough to
+secure a conviction."
+
+"That's true," said Billy. "But we must do our very best. If we can't
+convict both, we may one; and even if we fail altogether in the
+prosecution, we will at least expose the rascals, and this county will
+be too hot for them afterwards. Foggy is always shaky in the knees, and
+if we give him half a chance will turn state's evidence. Why not sound
+him on the subject?"
+
+Foggy needed very little sounding indeed. At the first intimation that
+there might be hope for him if he would tell what he knew he volunteered
+a confession, which bore out Billy's theory to the letter. From his
+statement, too, it appeared that Harrison was the author of the whole
+scheme. He had overborne Ewing's scruples, and by dint of threats
+compelled him to commit a practical forgery by writing his own name in
+such a way as to make it appear to be his father's. While Foggy was at
+it he made a clean breast, telling all about his partnership with
+Harrison in the gambling operations, and admitting that the note
+Harrison held was dated ahead and given solely for a gambling debt.
+
+The commonwealth's attorney agreed to enter a _nolle prosequi_ in
+Foggy's case, and to transfer him, at the trial, from the prisoner's box
+to the witness stand.
+
+When Billy came out from this conference he found Major Pagebrook
+awaiting an opportunity to speak to him. The major, it seems, after
+going home had returned to the Court House.
+
+"Billy," he said, "I know now about that letter from Robert to Ewing.
+Sarah Ann has told me she read it when it came. What is to be done about
+it?"
+
+"Nothing," said Billy, "except that you will of course return Robert the
+extra three hundred dollars he has paid you."
+
+"Of course I'll do that. But I mean--the fact is I don't want that
+letter to appear on the trial. You will have to tell where you got it,
+and it will come out, in spite of everything, that Sarah Ann knew of
+it."
+
+"Well, Cousin Edwin, what am I to do? This has been a wretched business
+from first to last. Poor Bob has suffered severely for Ewing's fault,
+and--I must speak plainly--through Cous--through your wife's iniquity.
+Not only has he had to pay the money twice, he has been sent to jail,
+and but for a lucky accident his reputation as an honorable man would
+have been destroyed forever, and that merely to gratify your wife's
+petty and unreasonable spite against him. It became my duty to unravel
+this mystery for the sake of freeing Bob from an unjust and undeserved
+disgrace. In doing that I have accidentally stumbled upon the discovery
+of a crime, and even if it were not illegal I am not the man to compound
+a felony. For you I am heartily sorry, but your wife is only reaping
+what she has sown. I would do anything honorable to spare your feelings,
+Cousin Edwin, but I can not help giving evidence in this case. I really
+do not see, however, precisely how Bob's letter can be used as evidence.
+If it had been sufficient in itself to establish the facts to which it
+referred I should have used it to set Bob right, and the thing would
+have ended there. But Bob's statement was of course an interested one,
+and I feared that after a time, if not immediately, gossip would seize
+upon that point and say the whole thing was made up merely to clear Bob.
+I knew he would never show Ewing's letter to which his was a reply, and
+so I set myself to work hunting up the draft. I don't see how the letter
+can well come up on the trial, but if it should become necessary for me
+to tell about it, I must tell all about it, of course."
+
+Major Pagebrook walked away, his head bowed as if there were a heavy
+weight upon his shoulders, and Billy pitied him heartily. This woman,
+who, in her groundless malignity, had wrought so much wrong and brought
+so much of sorrow upon the good old man, was his wife, and he could not
+free himself from the fact or its consequences. He had never willingly
+done a wrong in his life, and it seemed peculiarly hard that he should
+now have to suffer so sorely for the sins of the woman whom he called
+wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+_Which Is also The Last._
+
+
+Upon leaving Major Pagebrook Billy mounted his horse and galloped away
+toward Shirley, not caring to remain till the court should reassemble at
+four, as there could hardly be any business done beyond the formal
+presentation of the indictments by the grand jury and the committal of
+the prisoners to await trial.
+
+When he entered the yard gate at Shirley he found his father, who had
+returned from the court house some time before, awaiting him.
+
+"I have not told Sudie, my son," said the old gentleman. "I found it
+hard to keep my lips closed, but you have managed this affair grandly,
+my boy, and you ought to have the pleasure of telling the story in your
+own way. Go into the office, and I'll send Sudie to you."
+
+Miss Sudie was naturally enough alarmed when her uncle, repressing
+everything like an expression of joy, and in doing that managing to look
+as solemn as a death warrant, told her that Billy wanted to see her in
+the office immediately. But Billy's look, as she entered, reassured her.
+He met her just inside the door, and taking her face between his hands,
+said:
+
+"I'm as proud and as glad as a boy with red morocco tops to his boots,
+little girl."
+
+[Illustration: "I'M AS PROUD AND AS GLAD AS A BOY WITH RED MOROCCO TOPS
+TO HIS BOOTS."]
+
+"What about, Cousin Billy?" asked Miss Sudie in a tremor of uncertainty.
+
+"Because I've been doing the duty you set me. I've been 'turning
+something up.' I've torn the mask off of that dear old rascal Bob
+Pagebrook, and shown him up in his true colors. It's just shameful the
+way he's been deceiving us, making us think him an absconding debtor and
+all that when he a'n't anything of the sort. He's as true as--as you
+are. There; that's a figure of speech he'd approve if he could hear it,
+and he shall too. I'm going to write him a letter to-night, telling him
+just what I think of him."
+
+There was a little flutter in Miss Sudie's manner as she sat down,
+unable to stand any longer.
+
+"Tell me about it, please," was all she could say.
+
+"Well, in a word, Bob's all right, with a big balance over. He's as
+straight as a well rope when the bucket's full. Let me make you
+understand that in advance, and then I'll tell my story."
+
+And with this Billy proceeded in his own way to tell the young woman all
+about the visit to Philadelphia and its results. When he had finished
+Miss Sudie simply sat and looked at him, smiling through her tears the
+thankfulness she could not put into words. When after awhile she found
+her voice she said some things which were very pleasant indeed to Mr.
+Billy in the hearing.
+
+The next day's mail carried three letters to Mr. Robert Pagebrook. What
+Miss Sudie said in hers I do not know, and if I did I should not tell.
+Col. Barksdale wrote in a stately way, as he always did when he meant to
+be particularly affectionate, the gist of his letter lying in the
+sentence with which he opened it, which was:
+
+"I did not know, until now, how much of your father there is in you."
+
+Mr. Billy's letter would make the fortune of any comic paper if it could
+be published. Robert insists that there were just three hundred and
+sixty-five hitherto unheard of metaphors in the body of it, and
+twenty-one more in the postscript. He says he counted them carefully.
+
+Naturally enough, after all that had happened, everybody at Shirley
+wanted Robert to come back again as soon as possible, and one and all
+entreated him to spend the Christmas there. This he promised to do, but
+at the last moment he was forced to abandon his purpose in consequence
+of the utter failure of Mr. Dudley's health, an occurrence which left
+Robert with the entire burden of the paper upon him, and made it
+impossible for him to leave New York during the holidays. Even with
+Robert there the publishers were anxious about the management of the
+paper at so critical a time; but Robert's single-handed success fully
+justified the confidence Mr. Dudley had felt and expressed in his
+ability to conduct the paper, and when, a month later, Dudley resigned
+entirely, to go abroad in search of health, our friend Robert Pagebrook
+was promoted to his place and pay, having won his way in a few months to
+a position in his new profession which he had not hoped to gain without
+years of patient toil.
+
+The rest of my story hardly needs telling. The winter was passed in hard
+work on Robert's part, but the work was of a sort which it delighted him
+to do. He knew the worth of printed words, and rejoiced in the
+possession of that power which the printing-press only can give to a
+man, multiplying him, as it were, and enabling him to give utterance to
+his thought in the presence of an audience too vast and too widely
+scattered ever to be reached by any one human voice. It was a favorite
+theory of his, too, that printed words carry with them some of the force
+expended upon them by the press itself--that a sentence which would fall
+meaningless from its author's lips may mold a score of human lives if it
+be put in type. He was and is an enthusiast in his work, and never
+apostle went forth to preach a new gospel with more of earnestness or
+with a stronger sense of responsibility than Robert Pagebrook brings
+with him daily to his desk.
+
+The winter softened into spring, and when the spring was richest in its
+promise there was a quiet wedding at Shirley.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My story is fully told, but my friend who writes novels insists that I
+must not lay down the pen until I shall have gathered up what he calls
+the loose threads, and knitted them into a seemly and unraveled end.
+
+Major Pagebrook, dreading the possible exposure of his wife's
+misconduct, placed money in the hands of a friend, and that friend
+became surety for Dr. Harrison's appearance when called for trial. Of
+course Dr. Harrison betook himself to other parts, going, indeed, to the
+West Indies, where he died of yellow fever a year or two later. Foggy
+disappeared also, but whither he went I really do not know.
+
+Billy Barksdale is still a bachelor, and still likes to listen while
+Aunt Catherine explains relationships with her keys.
+
+Col. Barksdale has retired from practice, and lives quietly at Shirley.
+
+Cousin Sarah Ann is still Cousin Sarah Ann, but she lives in Richmond
+now, having discovered years ago that the air of the country did not
+agree with her.
+
+Robert and Sudie have a pretty little place in the country, within half
+an hour's ride of New York, and I sometimes run out to spend a quiet
+Sunday with Cousin Sudie. Robert I can see in his office any day. Their
+oldest boy, William Barksdale Pagebrook, entered college last
+September.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE Hoosier School-Master.
+
+By EDWARD EGGLESTON.
+
+
+Finely Illustrated, with 12 full-page Engravings and Numerous other
+Cuts.
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+    Chapter      I.--A Private Lesson from a Bull-dog.
+    Chapter     II.--A Spell Coming.
+    Chapter    III.--Mirandy, Hank, and Shocky.
+    Chapter     IV.--Spelling down the Master.
+    Chapter      V.--The Walk Home.
+    Chapter     VI.--A Night at Pete Jones's.
+    Chapter    VII.--Ominous Remarks of Mr. Jones.
+    Chapter   VIII.--The Struggle in the Dark.
+    Chapter     IX.--Has God Forgotten Shocky?
+    Chapter      X.--The Devil of Silence.
+    Chapter     XI.--Miss Martha Hawkins.
+    Chapter    XII.--The Hardshell Preacher.
+    Chapter   XIII.--A Struggle for the Mastery.
+    Chapter    XIV.--A Crisis with Bud.
+    Chapter     XV.--The Church of the Best Licks.
+    Chapter    XVI.--The Church Militant.
+    Chapter   XVII.--A Council of War.
+    Chapter  XVIII.--Odds and Ends.
+    Chapter    XIX.--Face to Face.
+    Chapter     XX.--God Remembers Shocky.
+    Chapter    XXI.--Miss Nancy Sawyer.
+    Chapter   XXII.--Pancakes.
+    Chapter  XXIII.--A Charitable Institution.
+    Chapter   XXIV.--The Good Samaritan.
+    Chapter    XXV.--Bud Wooing.
+    Chapter   XXVI.--A Letter and its Consequences.
+    Chapter  XXVII.--A Loss and a Gain.
+    Chapter XXVIII.--The Flight.
+    Chapter   XXIX.--The Trial.
+    Chapter    XXX.--"Brother Sodom."
+    Chapter   XXXI.--The Trial Concluded.
+    Chapter  XXXII.--After the Battle.
+    Chapter XXXIII.--Into the Light.
+    Chapter  XXXIV.--"How it Came Out."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE END OF THE WORLD.
+
+A LOVE STORY.
+
+BY EDWARD EGGLESTON.
+
+Author of "The Hoosier School-master," etc.
+
+With 15 full page Engravings, and numerous other Fine Illustrations.
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+    Chapter
+          I.--In Love with a Dutchman.
+         II.--An Explosion.
+        III.--A Farewell.
+         IV.--A Counter-Irritant.
+          V.--At the Castle.
+         VI.--The Backwoods Philosopher.
+        VII.--Within and Without.
+       VIII.--Figgers won't Lie.
+         IX.--The New Singing-Master.
+          X.--An Offer of Help.
+         XI.--The Coon-dog Argument.
+        XII.--Two Mistakes.
+       XIII.--The Spider Spins.
+        XIV.--The Spider's Web.
+         XV.--The Web Broken.
+        XVI.--Jonas Expounds the Subject.
+       XVII.--The Wrong Pew.
+      XVIII.--The Encounter.
+        XIX.--The Mother.
+         XX.--The Steam-Doctor.
+        XXI.--The Hawk in a New Part.
+       XXII.--Jonas Expresses his Opinion on Dutchmen.
+      XXIII.--Somethin' Ludikerous.
+       XXIV.--The Giant Great-heart.
+        XXV.--A Chapter of Betweens.
+       XXVI.--A Nice Little Game.
+      XXVII.--The Result of an Evening with Gentlemen.
+     XXVIII.--Waking up an Ugly Customer.
+       XXIX.--August and Norman.
+        XXX.--Aground.
+       XXXI.--Cynthy Ann's Sacrifice.
+      XXXII.--Julia's Enterprise.
+     XXXIII.--The Secret Stairway.
+      XXXIV.--The Interview.
+       XXXV.--Getting Ready for the End.
+      XXXVI.--The Sin of Sanctimony.
+     XXXVII.--The Deluge.
+    XXXVIII.--Scaring a Hawk.
+      XXXIX.--Jonas takes an Appeal.
+         XL.--Selling Out.
+        XLI.--The Last Day and What Happened in it.
+       XLII.--For Ever and Ever.
+      XLIII.--The Midnight Alarm.
+       XLIV.--Squaring Accounts.
+        XLV.--New Plans.
+       XLVI.--The Shiveree.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MYSTERY OF METROPOLISVILLE.
+
+By EDWARD EGGLESTON,
+
+_Author of "The Hoosier School-Master," "The End of the World," etc._
+
+With Thirteen Illustrations.
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+Preface.--Words Beforehand. Chapter 1. The Autocrat of the
+Stage-Coach.--2. The Sod Tavern.--3. Land and Love.--4. Albert and
+Katy.--5. Corner Lots.--6. Little Katy's Lover.--7. Catching and getting
+Caught.--8. Isabel Marlay.--9. Lovers and Lovers.--10. Plausaby, Esq.,
+takes a Fatherly Interest.--11, About Several Things.--12. An
+Adventure.--13. A Shelter.--14. The Inhabitant.--15. An Episode.--16.
+The Return.--17. Sawney and his Old Love.--18. A Collision.--19.
+Standing Guard in Vain.--20. Sawney and Westcott.--21. Rowing.--22.
+Sailing.--23. Sinking.--24. Dragging.--25. Afterwards.--26. The
+Mystery.--27. The Arrest.--28. The Tempter.--29. The Trial.--30. The
+Penitentiary.--31. Mr. Lurton.--32. A Confession.--33. Death.--34. Mr.
+Lurton's Courtship.--35. Unbarred.--36. Isabel.--37. The Last.--Words
+Afterwards.
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.--BY FRANK BEARD.
+
+His Unselfish Love found a Melancholy Recompense.--The Superior
+Being.--Mr. Minorkey and the Fat Gentleman.--Plausaby sells Lots.--"By
+George! He! he! he!"--Mrs. Plausaby.--The Inhabitant.--A Pinch of
+Snuff.--Mrs. Ferret--One Savage Blow full in the face.--"What on Airth's
+the Matter?"--The Editor of "The Windmill."--"Get up and Foller!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE; A Guide to the Successful Propagation and
+Cultivation OF FLORISTS' PLANTS.
+
+By PETER HENDERSON, Bergen City, N. J.,
+
+AUTHOR OF "GARDENING FOR PROFIT."
+
+
+MR. HENDERSON is known as the largest Commercial Florist In the country.
+In the present work he gives a full account of his modes of propagation
+and cultivation. It is adapted to the wants of the amateur, as well as
+the professional grower.
+
+The scope of the work may be judged from the following
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+    Aspect and Soil.
+    Laying out Lawn and Flower Gardens.
+    Designs for Flower Gardens.
+    Planting of Flower Beds.
+    Soils for Potting.
+    Temperature and Moisture.
+    The Potting of Plants.
+    Cold Frames--Winter Protection.
+    Construction of Hot-Beds.
+    Greenhouse Structures.
+    Modes of Heating.
+    Propagation by Seeds.
+    Propagation by Cuttings.
+    Propagation of Lilies.
+    Culture of the Rose.
+    Culture of the Verbena.
+    Culture of the Tuberose.
+    Orchid Culture.
+    Holland Bulbs.
+    Cape Bulbs.
+    Winter-Flowering Plants.
+    Construction of Bouquets.
+    Hanging Baskets.
+    Window Gardening.
+    Rock-Work.
+    Insects.
+    Nature's Law of Colors.
+    Packing Plants.
+    Plants by Mail.
+    Profits of Floriculture.
+    Soft-Wooded Plants.
+    Annuals.
+    Hardy Herbaceous Plants.
+    Greenhouse Plants.
+    Diary of Operations for each Day of the Year.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PARSONS ON THE ROSE.
+
+A TREATISE ON THE Propagation, Culture, and History of the Rose.
+
+By SAMUEL B. PARSONS.
+
+NEW AND REVISED EDITION.
+
+ILLUSTRATED.
+
+
+The Rose is the only flower that can be said to have a history. It is
+popular now, and was so centuries ago. In his work upon the Rose, Mr.
+Parsons has gathered up the curious legends concerning the flower, and
+gives us an idea of the esteem in which it was held in former times. A
+simple garden classification has been adopted, and the leading varieties
+under each class enumerated and briefly described. The chapters on
+multiplication, cultivation, and training, are very full, and the work
+is altogether the most complete of any before the public.
+
+The following is from the author's Preface:
+
+     "In offering a new edition of this work, the preparation of which
+     gave us pleasure more than twenty years ago, we have not only
+     carefully revised the garden classification, but have stricken out
+     much of the poetry, which, to the cultivator, may have seemed
+     irrelevant, if not worthless. For the interest of the classical
+     scholar, we have retained much of the early history of the Rose,
+     and its connection with the manners and customs of the two great
+     nations of a former age.
+
+     "The amateur will, we think, find the labor of selection much
+     diminished by the increased simplicity of the mode we have adopted,
+     while the commercial gardener will in nowise be injured by the
+     change.
+
+     "In directions for culture, we give the results of our own
+     experience, and have not hesitated to avail ourselves of any
+     satisfactory results in the experience of others, which might
+     enhance the utility of the work."
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+    CHAPTER I.--BOTANICAL CLASSIFICATION.
+    CHAPTER II.--GARDEN CLASSIFICATION.
+    CHAPTER III.--GENERAL CULTURE OF THE ROSE.
+    CHAPTER IV.--SOIL, SITUATION, AND PLANTING.
+    CHAPTER V.--PRUNING, TRAINING, AND BEDDING.
+    CHAPTER VI.--POTTING AND FORCING.
+    CHAPTER VII.--PROPAGATION.
+    CHAPTER VIII.--MULTIPLICATION BY SEED AND HYBRIDIZING.
+    CHAPTER IX.--DISEASES AND INSECTS ATTACKING THE ROSE.
+    CHAPTER X.--EARLY HISTORY OF THE ROSE, AND FABLES RESPECTING ITS
+      ORIGIN.
+    CHAPTER XI.--LUXURIOUS USE OF THE ROSE.
+    CHAPTER XII.--THE ROSE IN CEREMONIES AND FESTIVALS, AND IN THE
+      ADORNMENT OF BURIAL-PLACES.
+    CHAPTER XIII.--THE ROSE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
+    CHAPTER XIV.--PERFUMES OF THE ROSE.
+    CHAPTER XV.--MEDICAL PROPERTIES OF THE ROSE.
+    CHAPTER XVI.--GENERAL REMARKS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BEAUTIFYING COUNTRY HOMES.
+
+_A Hand-Book of Landscape Gardening._
+
+BY J. WEIDENMANN.
+
+A SPLENDID QUARTO VOLUME.
+
+Beautifully Illustrated with numerous fine food Engravings, and with 17
+Full-Page and 7 Double-Page Colored Lithographs OF PLACES ALREADY
+IMPROVED.
+
+MAKE HOME BEAUTIFUL.
+
+NOTICES BY THE PRESS.
+
+
+A home! A home in the country! and a home made beautiful by taste! Here
+are three ideas which invest with a triple charm the subject of this
+exquisite volume. We know of nothing which indicates a more healthy
+progress among our countrymen than the growing taste for such homes. The
+American people are quick to follow a fashion, and it is getting to be
+the fashion to have a place in the country, and to beautify it; and this
+is at once fed and guided by such books as this, which lay down the just
+principles of landscape gardening; and teach all how to use the means at
+their disposal. This book is prepared with careful judgment. It includes
+many plans, and furnishes minute instruction for the laying out of
+grounds and the planting of trees. We have found very great pleasure in
+a first inspection, and doubt not that when another summer returns, we
+shall find the book as practically useful, as it is beautiful to the eye
+and exciting to the imagination.--_N. Y. Evangelist._
+
+We have from Orange Judd & Co. a magnificent manual, entitled
+_Beautifying Country Homes; a Hand-Book of Landscape Gardening_. It is a
+brief treatise on landscape gardening and architecture, explaining the
+principles of beauty which apply to it, and making just those practical
+suggestions of which every builder and owner of a little land, who
+desires to make the most of it in the way of convenience and taste,
+stands in need, in regard to lawns, drainage, roads, drives, walks,
+grading, fences, hedges, trees--their selection and their
+grouping--flowers, water, ornamentation, rock-work, tools, and general
+improvements. The chapter on "improving new places economically" would
+be worth much more than the cost of the book ten times over to many
+persons. The whole is illustrated, not only by little sketches, but by a
+series of full-page lithographs of places which have been actually
+treated in accordance with the principles laid down, with lists of trees
+and shrubs, and other useful suggestions. We have never met with any
+thing--and we have given a good deal of attention to the subject, and
+bought a great many books upon it--which seemed to us so helpful and, in
+general, so trustworthy as this treatise, which we heartily commend. We
+omitted to say that it has been done by Mr. J. Weidenmann,
+Superintendent of the City Park, and of Cedar Hill Cemetery, Hartford,
+Conn.--_Congregationalist_, (Boston.)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Man of Honor, by George Cary Eggleston
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Man of Honor, by George Cary Eggleston
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Man of Honor
+
+Author: George Cary Eggleston
+
+Release Date: September 30, 2011 [EBook #37563]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MAN OF HONOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<h1>A MAN OF HONOR.</h1>
+
+<h2>BY GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON.</h2>
+
+
+<p class="center">ILLUSTRATED<br />
+BY M. WOOLF</p>
+
+<p class="center">NEW YORK:<br />
+ORANGE JUDD COMPANY,<br />
+245 BROADWAY.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by the<br />
+ORANGE JUDD COMPANY,<br />
+In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p class="center">TO MARION, MY WIFE.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="front" id="front"></a>
+<img src="images/front.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"I'VE GOT YOU NOW."</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I have long been curious to know whether or not I could write a pretty
+good story, and now that the publishers are about to send the usual
+press copies of this book to the critics I am in a fair way to have my
+curiosity on that point satisfied.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<table width="100%">
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> I.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook gets up and Calls an Ancient Lawgiver </a></td><td align="right">11</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> II.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook is Invited to Breakfast </a></td><td align="right">22</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> III.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook Eats his Breakfast </a></td><td align="right">26</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> IV.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook Learns something about the Customs of the
+Country </a></td><td align="right">35</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> V.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook Makes Some Acquaintances </a></td><td align="right">42</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> VI.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook Makes a Good Impression </a></td><td align="right">48</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> VII.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook Learns Several Things </a></td><td align="right">54</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> VIII.&mdash;Miss Sudie Makes an Apt Quotation </a></td><td align="right">61</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> IX.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook Meets an Acquaintance </a></td><td align="right">65</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> X.&mdash;Chiefly Concerning "Foggy." </a></td><td align="right">70</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XI.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook Rides </a></td><td align="right">79</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XII.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook Dines with his Cousin Sarah Ann </a></td><td align="right">84</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XIII.&mdash;Concerning the Rivulets of Blue Blood </a></td><td align="right">95</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XIV.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook Manages to be in at the Death </a></td><td align="right">102</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XV.&mdash;Some very Unreasonable Conduct </a></td><td align="right">109</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XVI.&mdash;What Occurred Next Morning </a></td><td align="right">118</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XVII.&mdash;In which Mr. Pagebrook Bids his Friends Good-by </a></td><td align="right">123</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XVIII.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook Goes to Work </a></td><td align="right">128</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XIX.&mdash;A Short Chapter, not very interesting, perhaps, but of
+some Importance in the Story, as the Reader will probably discover after
+awhile </a></td><td align="right">134</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XX.&mdash;Cousin Sarah Ann Takes Robert's Part </a></td><td align="right">138</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXI.&mdash;Miss Barksdale Expresses some Opinions </a></td><td align="right">143</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXII.&mdash;Mr. Sharp Does His Duty </a></td><td align="right">150</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXIII.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook Takes a Lesson in the Law </a></td><td align="right">158</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXIV.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook Cuts himself loose from the Past and Plans
+a Future </a></td><td align="right">163</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXV.&mdash;In which Miss Sudie Acts very Unreasonably </a></td><td align="right">166</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXVI.&mdash;In which Miss Sudie Adopts the Socratic Method. </a></td><td align="right">175</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXVII.&mdash;Mr. Pagebrook Accepts an Invitation to Lunch and another
+Invitation </a></td><td align="right">181</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXVIII.&mdash;Major Pagebrook asserts himself </a></td><td align="right">188</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXIX.&mdash;Mr. Barksdale, the Younger, Goes upon a Journey </a></td><td align="right">198</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXX.&mdash;The younger Mr. Barksdale Asks to be put upon His Oath </a></td><td align="right">204</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXXI.&mdash;Mr. William Barksdale Explains </a></td><td align="right">208</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XXXII.&mdash;Which Is also The Last </a></td><td align="right">216</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2>
+
+
+<table width="100%">
+<tr><td><a href="#front">"I've got You Now." </a></td><td align="right"><i>Frontispiece.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#illus1">Mr. Robert Pagebrook was "Blue." </a></td><td align="right">13</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#illus2">"I fall at once into a Chronic State of Washing up Things." </a></td><td align="right">57</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#illus3">"Foggy." </a></td><td align="right">73</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#illus4">Cousin Sarah Ann </a></td><td align="right">87</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#illus5">The Rivulets of Blue Blood </a></td><td align="right">98</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#illus6">Miss Sudie declares herself "so glad." </a></td><td align="right">116</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#illus7">"Let him Serve it at once, then." </a></td><td align="right">156</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#illus8">"Very well, then." </a></td><td align="right">194</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><a href="#illus9">"I'm as Proud and as Glad as a Boy with Red Morocco Tops to his Boots."
+</a></td><td align="right">218</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>A MAN OF HONOR.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook gets up and calls an Ancient Lawgiver.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Robert Pagebrook was "blue." There was no denying the fact, and for
+the first time in his life he admitted it as he lay abed one September
+morning with his hands locked over the top of his head, while his
+shapely and muscular body was stretched at lazy length under a scanty
+covering of sheet. He was snappish too, as his faithful serving man had
+discovered upon knocking half an hour ago for entrance, and receiving a
+rather pointed and wholly unreasonable injunction to "go about his
+business," his sole business lying just then within the precincts of Mr.
+Robert Pagebrook's room, to which he was thus denied admittance. The old
+servant had obeyed to the best of his ability, going not about his
+business but away from it, wondering meanwhile what had come over the
+young gentleman, whom he had never found moody before.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus1" id="illus1"></a>
+<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"MR. ROBERT PAGEBROOK WAS 'BLUE.'"</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>It was clear that Mr. Robert Pagebrook's reflections were anything but
+pleasant as he lay there thinking, thinking, thinking&mdash;resolving not to
+think and straightway thinking again harder than ever. His disturbance
+was due to a combination of causes. His muddy boots were in full view
+for one thing, and he was painfully conscious that they were not likely
+to get themselves blacked now that he had driven old Moses away. This
+reminded him that he had showed temper when Moses's meek knock had
+disturbed him, and to show temper without proper cause he deemed a
+weakness. Weaknesses were his pet aversion. Weakness found little
+toleration with him, particularly when the weakness showed itself in his
+own person, out of which he had been all his life chastising such
+infirmities. His petulance with Moses, therefore, contributed to his
+annoyance, becoming an additional cause of that from which it came as an
+effect.</p>
+
+<p>Our young gentleman acknowledged, as I have already said, that he was
+out of spirits, and in the very act of acknowledging it he contemned
+himself because of it. His sturdy manhood rebelled against its own
+weakness, and mocked at it, which certainly was not a very good way to
+cure it. He denied that there was any good excuse for his depression,
+and scourged himself, mentally, for giving way to it, a process which
+naturally enough made him give way to it all the more. It depressed him
+to know that he was weak enough to be depressed. To my thinking he did
+himself very great injustice. He was, in fact, very unreasonable with
+himself, and deserved to suffer the consequences. I say this frankly,
+being the chronicler of this young man's doings and not his apologist by
+any means. He certainly had good reason to be gloomy, inasmuch as he had
+two rather troublesome things on his hands, namely, a young man without
+a situation and a disappointment in love, or fancy, which is often
+mistaken for love. A circumstance which made the matter worse was that
+the young man without a situation for whose future Mr. Robert Pagebrook
+had to provide was Mr. Robert Pagebrook himself. This alone would not
+have troubled him greatly if it had not been for his other trouble; for
+the great hulking fellow who lay there with his hands clasped over his
+head "cogitating," as he would have phrased it, had too much physical
+force, too much of good health and consequent animal spirits, to
+distrust either the future or his own ability to cope with whatever
+difficulties it might bring with it. To men with broad chests and great
+brawny legs and arms like his the future has a very promising way of
+presenting itself. Besides, our young man knew himself well furnished
+for a fight with the world. He knew very well how to take care of
+himself. He had done farm labor as a boy during the long summer
+vacations, a task set him by his Virginian father, who had carried a
+brilliant intellect in a frail body to a western state, where he had
+married and died, leaving his widow this one son, for whom in his own
+weakness he desired nothing so much as physical strength and bodily
+health. The boy had grown into a sturdy youth when the mother died,
+leaving him with little in the way of earthly possessions except
+well-knit limbs, a clear, strong, active mind, and an independent,
+self-reliant spirit. With these he had managed to work his way through
+college, turning his hand to anything which would help to provide him
+with the necessary means&mdash;keeping books, "coaching" other students,
+canvassing for various things, and doing work of other sorts, caring
+little whether it was dignified or undignified provided it was honest
+and promised the desired pecuniary return. After graduation he had
+accepted a tutorship in the college wherein he had studied&mdash;a position
+which he had resigned (about a year before the time at which we find him
+in a fit of the blues) to take upon himself the duties of "Professor of
+English Language and Literature, and Adjunct Professor of Mathematics,"
+in a little collegiate institute with big pretensions in one of the
+suburbs of Philadelphia. In short, he had been knocked about in the
+world until he had acquired considerable confidence in his ability to
+earn a living at almost anything he might undertake.</p>
+
+<p>Under the circumstances, therefore, it is not probable that this
+energetic and self-confident young gentleman would have suffered the
+loss of his professorship to annoy him very seriously if it had not been
+accompanied by the other trouble mentioned. Indeed, the two had come so
+closely together, and were so intimately connected in other ways, that
+Mr. Robert Pagebrook was inclined to wonder, as he lay there in bed,
+whether there might not exist between them somewhere the relation of
+cause and effect. Whether there really was any other than an accidental
+blending of the two events I am sure I do not know; and the reader is at
+liberty, after hearing the brief story of their happening, to take
+either side he prefers of the question raised in Mr. Rob's mind. For
+myself, I find it impossible to determine the point. But here is the
+story, as young Pagebrook turned it over and over in his mind in spite
+of himself.</p>
+
+<p>President Currier, of the collegiate institute, had a daughter, Miss
+Nellie, who wanted to study Latin more than anything else in the world.
+President Currier particularly disliked conjugations and parsings and
+everything else pertaining to the study of language; and so it happened
+that as Miss Nellie was quite a good-looking and agreeable damsel, our
+young friend Pagebrook volunteered to give her the coveted instruction
+in her favorite study in the shape of afternoon lessons. The tutor soon
+discovered that his pupil's earnest wish to learn Latin had been
+based&mdash;as such desires frequently are in the case of young women&mdash;upon
+an entire misapprehension of the nature and difficulty of the study. In
+fact, Miss Nellie's clearest idea upon the subject of Latin before
+beginning it was that "it must be so nice!" Her progress, therefore,
+after the first week or two, was certainly not remarkable for its
+rapidity; but the tutor persisted. After awhile the young lady said
+"Latin wasn't nice at all," a remark which she made haste to qualify by
+assuring her teacher that "it's nice to take lessons in it, though."
+Finally Miss Nellie ceased to make any pretense of learning the lessons,
+but somehow the afternoon <i>séances</i> over the grammar were continued,
+though it must be confessed that the talk was not largely of verbs.</p>
+
+<p>By the time commencement day came the occasional presence of Miss Nellie
+had become a sort of necessity in the young professor's daily existence,
+and the desire to be with her led him to spend the summer at Cape May,
+whither her father annually took her for the season. Now Cape May is an
+expensive place, as watering places usually are, and so Mr. Robert
+Pagebrook's stay of a little over two months there made a serious
+reduction in his reserve fund, which was at best a very limited one.
+Before going to Cape May he had concluded that he was in love with Miss
+Nellie, and had informed her of the fact. She had expressed, by manner
+rather than by spoken word, a reasonable degree of pleasure in the
+knowledge of this fact; but when pressed for a reply to the young
+gentleman's impetuous questionings, she had prettily avoided committing
+herself beyond recall. She told him she might possibly come to love him
+a little after awhile, in a pretty little maidenly way, which satisfied
+him that she loved him a good deal already. She said she "didn't know"
+with a tone and manner which convinced him that she did know; and so the
+Cape May season passed off very pleasantly, with just enough of
+uncertainty about the position of affairs to keep up an interest in
+them.</p>
+
+<p>As the season drew near its close, however, Miss Nellie suddenly
+informed her lover one evening that her dear father had "plans" for her,
+and that of course they had both been amusing themselves merely; and she
+said this in so innocent and so sincere a way that for the moment her
+stunned admirer believed it as he retired to his room with an unusual
+ache in his heart. When the young man sat down alone, however, and began
+meditating upon the events of the past summer, he was unreasonable
+enough to accuse the innocent little maiden of very naughty trifling,
+and even to think her wanting in honesty and sincerity. As he sat there
+brooding over the matter, and half hoping that Miss Nellie was only
+trying him for the purpose of testing the depth of his affection, a
+servant brought him a note, which he opened and read. It was a very
+formal affair, as the reader will see upon running his eye over the
+following copy:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="right"><span class="smcap">Cape May</span>, Sept. 10th, 18&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dear Sir</i>:&mdash;It becomes my duty to inform you that the authorities
+controlling the collegiate institute's affairs, having found it
+necessary to retrench its expenses somewhat, have determined to
+dispense altogether with the adjunct professorship of Mathematics,
+and to distribute the duties appertaining to the chair of English
+Language and Literature among the other members of the faculty. In
+consequence of these changes we shall hereafter be deprived of your
+valuable assistance in the collegiate institute. There is yet due
+you three hundred dollars ($300) upon your salary for the late
+collegiate year, and I greatly regret that the treasurer informs me
+of a present lack of funds with which to discharge this obligation.
+I personally promise you, however, that the amount shall be
+remitted to whatever address you may give me, on or before the
+fifteenth day of November next. I send this by a messenger just as
+I am upon the point of leaving Cape May for a brief trip to other
+parts of the country. I remain, sir, with the utmost respect,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">Your obedient servant,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">David Currier</span>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">President, etc.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><i>To Professor Robert Pagebrook.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This letter had come to Mr. Robert very unexpectedly, and its immediate
+consequence had been to send him hastily back to his city lodgings. He
+had arrived late at night, and finding no matches in his room, which was
+situated in a business building where his neighbors were unknown to him,
+he had been compelled to go to bed in the dark, without the possibility
+of ascertaining whether or not there were any letters awaiting him on
+his table.</p>
+
+<p>Our young gentleman was not, ordinarily, of an irritable disposition,
+and trifling things rarely ever disturbed his equanimity, but he was
+forced to admit, as he lay there in bed, that he had been a very
+unreasonable young gentleman on several recent occasions, and naturally
+enough he began to catalogue his sins of this sort. Among other things
+he remembered that he had worked himself into a temper over the
+emptiness of the match-safe; and this reminded him that he had not even
+yet looked to see if there were any letters on the table at his elbow,
+much as he had the night previously bewailed the impossibility of doing
+so at once. Somehow this matter of his correspondence did not seem half
+so imperative in its demands upon his attention now that he could read
+his letters at once as it had seemed the night before when he could not
+read them at all. He stretched out his hand rather languidly, therefore,
+and taking up the half dozen letters which lay on the table, began to
+turn them over, examining the superscriptions with small show of
+interest. Breaking one open he muttered, "There's another forty dollars'
+worth of folly. I did not need that coat, but ordered it expressly for
+Cape May. The bill must be paid, of course, and here I am, out of work,
+with no prospects, and about five hundred dollars less money in bank
+than I ought to have. &mdash;&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>I am really afraid he closed that sentence with an ejaculation. I have
+set down an exclamation point to cover the possibility of such a thing.</p>
+
+<p>He went on with his letters. Presently he opened the last but one, and
+immediately proceeded to open his eyes rather wider than usual. Jumping
+out of bed he thrust his head out of the door and called,</p>
+
+<p>"Moses!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Moses!!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Moses</span>!!!"</p>
+
+<p>"MOSES!!!!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook is invited to Breakfast.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>After he had waked up whatever echoes there were in the building by his
+crescendo calling for Moses, besides spoiling the temper of the night
+editor who was just then in the midst of his first slumber in the room
+opposite, Mr. Rob remembered that the old colored janitor, who owned the
+biblical name, and who for a trifling consideration ministered in the
+capacity of servant to the personal comfort of the occupants of the
+rooms under his charge, was never known to answer a call. He was sure to
+be within hearing, but would maintain a profound silence until he had
+disposed of whatever matter he might happen to have in hand at the
+moment, after which he would come to the caller in the sedate and
+dignified way proper to a person of his importance. Remembering this,
+and hearing some ominous mutterings from the night editor's room, our
+young gentleman withdrew his head from the corridor, put on his
+dressing-gown and slippers, and sat down to await the leisurely coming
+of the serving man.</p>
+
+<p>Taking up the note again he reread it, although he knew perfectly well
+everything in it, and began speculating upon what it could possibly
+mean, knowing all the while that no amount of speculation could throw
+the slightest ray of light on the subject in the absence of further
+information. He read it aloud, just as you or I would have done, when
+there was nobody by to listen. It was as brief as a telegram, and merely
+said: "Will you please inform me at once whether we may count upon your
+acceptance of the position offered you?" It was signed with an
+unfamiliar name, to which was appended the abbreviated word "Pres't."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall certainly be very happy to inform the gentleman," thought the
+perplexed young man, "whether he may or may not (by the way he very
+improperly omits the alternative 'or not' after his 'whether'), whether
+he may or may not 'count upon' (I must look up that expression and see
+if there is good authority for its use), whether he may or may not count
+upon my acceptance of the position offered me, just as soon as I can
+inform myself upon the matter. As I have not at present the slightest
+idea of what the 'position' is, it is somewhat difficult for me to make
+up my mind concerning it. However, as I am without employment and
+uncomfortably short of money, there seems to be every probability that
+my unknown correspondent's proposition, whatever it is, will be
+favorably considered. Moses will come after awhile, I suppose, and he
+probably has the other letter caged as a 'vallable.' Let me see what we
+have here from William."</p>
+
+<p>With this our young gentleman opened his only remaining letter, which
+he had already discovered by a glance at the postmark was from a
+Virginian cousin. It was a mere note, in which his cousin wrote:</p>
+
+<p>"A little matter of business takes me to Philadelphia next week. Shall
+be at Girard Ho., Thrsd morn'g. Meet me there at breakfast, but don't
+come too early. Train won't get in till three, so I'll sleep a little
+late. Sh'd you wake me too early, I'll be as cross as a $20 bank-note,
+and make a bad impression on you."</p>
+
+<p>An amused smile played over Mr. Robert's face as he read this note over
+and over. What he was thinking I do not know. Aloud he said:</p>
+
+<p>"What a passion my cousin has for abbreviations! One would think he had
+a grudge against words from the way in which he cuts them up. And what a
+figure of speech that is! 'As cross as a twenty-dollar bank-note!' Let
+me see. I may safely assume that the letters 'Thrs' with an elevated 'd'
+mean Thursday, and as this is Thursday, and as the letter was written
+last week, and as my watch tells me it is now ten o'clock, and as my
+boots are still unblacked, and as Moses has not yet made his appearance,
+it seems altogether probable that my cousin's breakfast will be
+postponed until the middle of the day if he waits for me to help him eat
+it. I am afraid he will be as cross as half a dozen bank notes of the
+largest denomination issued when we meet."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you call, sah?" asked Moses, coming very deliberately into the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"I am under the impression that I did, though it requires an
+extraordinary exercise of the memory to recall an event which happened
+so long ago. Have you any 'vallables' for me?"</p>
+
+<p>Moses <i>thought</i> he had. This was as near an approach to anything like a
+positive statement as Moses ever made. He would go to his room and
+ascertain. Among many other evidences of unusual wisdom on the part of
+the old negro was this, that he believed himself fully capable of
+recognizing a valuable letter whenever he saw it; and it was one of his
+self-imposed duties, whenever the post brought letters for any absent
+member of his constituency, to look them over and sequestrate all the
+"vallables" until the return of the owner, so that they might be
+delivered with his own hand. Returning now he brought two "vallables"
+for Mr. Pagebrook. One of them was a printed circular, but the other
+proved to be the desired letter, which was a formal tender of a
+professorship in a New England college, with an entirely satisfactory
+salary attached. Accompanying the official notice of election was a note
+informing him that his duties, in the event of acceptance, would not
+begin until the first of January, the engagement of the retiring
+professor terminating at that time.</p>
+
+<p>Under the influence of this news our young friend's face brightened
+quite as perceptibly as his boots did in the hands of the old servitor.
+He wrote his letter of acceptance at once, and then proceeded to dress
+for breakfast at the Girard House, whither he walked with as light a
+step and as cheerful a bearing as if he had not been a sadly
+disappointed lover at all.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook Eats his Breakfast.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Robert Pagebrook had never seen his cousin, and yet they were not
+altogether strangers to each other. Robert's father and William
+Barksdale's mother were brother and sister, and Shirley, the old
+Virginian homestead, which had been in the family for nearly two
+centuries, had passed to young Barksdale's mother by the voluntary act
+of Robert's father when, upon coming of age, he had gone west to try his
+fortune in a busier world than that of the Old Dominion. The two boys,
+William and Robert, had corresponded quite regularly in boyhood and
+quite irregularly after they grew up, and so they knew each other pretty
+well, though, as I have said, they had never met.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad, very glad to see you, William," said Robert as he grasped
+his cousin's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Now don't, I beg of you. Call me Billy, or Will, or anything else you
+choose, old fellow, but don't call me William, whatever you do. Nobody
+ever did but father, and he never did except of mornings when I wouldn't
+get up. Then he'd sing out 'Will-<i>yum</i>' with a sort of a horsewhip snap
+at the end of it. 'William' always reminds me of disturbed slumbers.
+Call me Billy, and I'll call you Bob. I'll do that anyhow, so you might
+as well fall into familiar ways. But come, tell me how you are and all
+about yourself. You haven't written to me since the flood; forgot to
+receive my last letter I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably I did. I have been forgetting a good many things. But I hope I
+have not kept you too long from your breakfast, and especially that I
+have not made you 'as cross as a twenty dollar bank-note.' Pray tell me
+what you meant by that figure of speech, will you not? I am curious to
+know where you got it and why."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" laughed Billy. "You'll have a lively time of it if you mean to
+unravel all my metaphors. Let me see. I must have referred to the big
+X's they print on the bank bills, or something of that sort. But let's
+go to breakfast at once. I'm as hungry as a village editor. We can talk
+over a beefsteak, or you can at least. I mean to be as still as a
+mill-pond of a cloudy night while you tell me all about yourself."</p>
+
+<p>And over their breakfast they talked. But in telling his story, while he
+remembered to mention all the details of his situation losing and his
+situation getting, Mr. Robert somehow forgot to say anything about his
+other disappointment. He soon learned to know and to like his cousin,
+and, which was more to the purpose, he began to enjoy him right
+heartily, in his own way, bantering him on his queer uses of English,
+half in sport, half in earnest, until the Virginian declared that they
+had grown as familiar with each other "as a pair of Irishmen at a
+wake."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you're off at once for your new place, a'n't you? This is
+September," said Billy after his cousin had finished so much of his
+story as he cared to reveal.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Robert. "My duties will not begin until January, and meantime
+I must go off on a tramp somewhere to get my muscles, physical and
+financial, up again. To tell the truth I have been dawdling at Cape May
+this summer instead of going off to the mountains or the prairies, as I
+usually do, for a healthful and economical foot journey, and the result
+is that my legs and arms are sadly run down. I have been spending too
+much money too, and so cannot afford to stay around Philadelphia until
+January. I think I must go off to some of the mountain counties, where
+the people think five dollars a fortune and call anything less than a
+precipice rising ground."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I reckon you won't," said the Virginian; "I've been inviting you
+to the 'home of your fathers' ever since I was born, and this is the
+very first time I ever got you to own up to a scrap of leisure as big as
+your thumb nail. I've got you now with nothing to do and nowhere to go,
+and I mean to take you with me this very evening to Virginia. We'll
+leave on the eleven o'clock train to-night, get to Richmond to-morrow at
+two, and go up home next morning in time for snack."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear Billy&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear Bob, I won't hear a word, and I won't take no for an
+answer. That's poz roz and the king's English. I'm managing this little
+job. You can give up your rooms to-day, sell out your plunder, and stop
+expenses. Then you needn't open your pocket-book again for so long that
+you'll forget how it looks inside. Put a few ninepences into your
+breeches pocket to throw at darkeys when they hold your horse, and the
+thing's done. And won't we wake up old Shirley? I tell you it's the
+delightfulest two hundred year old establishment you ever saw or didn't
+see. As the Irish attorney said of his ancestral home: 'there isn't a
+table in the house that hasn't had jigs danced upon it, and there's not
+a chair that you can't throw at a friend's head without the slightest
+fear of breaking it.' When we get there we'll have as much fun as a pack
+of hounds on a fresh trail."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word, Billy," said the professor cousin, "your metaphors have
+the merits of freshness and originality, at the least, though now and
+then, as in the present instance, they are certainly not very
+complimentary. However, it just occurs to me that I have been wanting to
+go to Shirley 'ever since I was born,' if you will allow me to borrow
+one of your forcible phrases, and this really does seem to be a
+peculiarly good opportunity to do so. I am a good deal interested in
+dialects and provincialisms, so it would be worth my while to visit you,
+if for no other reason, because my stay at Shirley will give me an
+excellent opportunity to study some of your own expressions. 'Poz roz,'
+now, is entirely new to me, and I might make something out of it in a
+philological way."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word" said Mr. Billy, "that's a polite speech. If you'll only
+say you'll go, though, I don't care the value of a herring's left fore
+foot what use you make of me. I'm yours to command and ready for any
+sport that suits you, unless you take a notion to throw rocks at me."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray tell me, Billy, do Virginians ever throw rocks? I am interested in
+muscle, and should greatly like to see some one able to throw rocks. I
+have paid half a dollar many a time to see a man lift extraordinary
+weights, but the best of the showmen never dream of handling anything
+heavier than cannon-balls. It would be decidedly entertaining to see a
+man throwing rocks and things of that sort about, even if he were to use
+both hands in doing it."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense," said Billy; "I'm not one of your students getting a
+dictionary lesson. Waiter!"</p>
+
+<p>"What will you have, sir?" asked the waiter.</p>
+
+<p>"Some hot biscuit, please."</p>
+
+<p>"They a'n't no hot biscuits, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Well some hot rolls then, or hot bread of some sort. Cold bread for
+breakfast is an abomination."</p>
+
+<p>"They a'n't no hot bread in the house, sir. We never keep none. Hot
+bread a'n't healthy, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You impertinent&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Billy," said Mr. Bob, "pray keep your temper. 'Impertinent' is
+not the word you wish to use. The <i>man</i> can not well be impertinent. He
+is a trifle impudent, I admit, but we can afford to overlook the
+impudence of his remark for the sake of the philological interest it
+has. Waiter, you ought to know, inasmuch as you have been brought up in
+a land of free schools, that two negatives, in English, destroy each
+other, and are equivalent to an affirmative; but the matter in which I
+am most interested just now is your remark that hot bread is not
+<i>healthy</i>. Your statement is perfectly true, and it would have been
+equally true if you had omitted the qualifying adjective 'hot.' No bread
+can be 'healthy,' because health and disease are not attributes or
+conditions of inanimate things. You probably meant, however, that hot
+bread is not wholesome, a point on which my friend here, who eats hot
+bread every day of his life, would naturally take issue with you. Please
+bring us some buttered toast."</p>
+
+<p>The waiter went away bewildered&mdash;questioning the sanity of Mr. Bob in
+all probability; a questioning in which Billy was half inclined to join
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth do you mean, Bob, by talking in that way to a waiter who
+don't know the meaning of one word in five that you use?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I meant for one thing to keep you from losing your temper and so
+spoiling your digestion. Human motives are complicated affairs, and
+hence I am by no means sure that I can further unravel my purpose in
+this case."</p>
+
+<p>"Return we to our muttons, then," said Billy; "I'll finish the business
+that brought me here, which is only to be present at the taking of a
+short deposition, by two or three o'clock. While I'm at it you can get
+your traps together, send your trunk to the depot, and get back here to
+dinner by four. Then we must get through the rest of the time the best
+way we can, and at eleven we'll be off. I'm crazy to see you with Phil
+once."</p>
+
+<p>"Phil, who is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Phil is a character&mdash;a colored one. I want to see how his 'dialect'
+will affect you. I'm half afraid you'll go crazy, though, under it."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't describe Phil, because I can't, and no more can anybody
+else. Phil must be seen to be appreciated. But come, I'm off for the
+notary's, and you must get you gone too, for you mustn't be late at
+dinner&mdash;that's poz."</p>
+
+<p>With this the two young men separated, the Virginian lawyer to attend to
+the taking of some depositions, and his cousin to surrender his
+lodgings, pack his trunk, and make such other arrangements as were
+necessary for his journey.</p>
+
+<p>This opportunity to visit the old homestead where his father had passed
+his boyhood was peculiarly welcome to Mr. Robert just now. There had
+always been to him a sort of glamour about the names Virginia and
+Shirley. His father's stories about his own childhood had made a deep
+impression on the mind of the boy, and to him Shirley was a palace and
+Virginia a fairy land. Whenever, in childhood, he was allowed to call a
+calf or a pig his own, he straightway bestowed upon it one or the other
+of the charmed names, and fancied that the animal grew stronger and more
+beautiful as a consequence. He had always intended to go to Shirley, but
+had never done so; just as you and I, reader, have always meant to do
+several scores of things that we have never done, though we can hardly
+say why. Just now, however, Mr. Billy's plan for his cousin was more
+than ever agreeable to Mr. Robert for various present and unusual
+reasons. He knew next to nobody in or about Philadelphia outside the
+precincts of the collegiate institute, and to hunt up acquaintances
+inside that institution was naturally enough not exactly to his taste.
+He had several months of time to dispose of in some way, and until Billy
+suggested the visit to Virginia, the best he had been able to do in the
+way of devising a time-killer was to plan a solitary wandering among the
+mountainous districts of Pennsylvania. Ordinarily he would have enjoyed
+such a journey very much, but just now he knew that Mr. Robert Pagebrook
+could hardly find a less agreeable companion than Mr. Robert Pagebrook
+himself. That little affair with Miss Nellie Currier kept coming up in
+his memory, and if the reader be a man it is altogether probable that he
+knows precisely how the memory of that story affected our young
+gentleman. He wanted company, and he wanted change, and he wanted
+out-door exercise, and where could he find all these quite so abundant
+as at an old Virginian country house? His love for Miss Nellie, he was
+sure, was a very genuine one; but he was equally sure that it was
+hopeless. Indeed, now that he knew the selfish insincerity of the damsel
+he did not even wish that his suit had prospered. This, at any rate, is
+what he thought, as you did, my dear sir, when you first learned what
+the word "Another" means when printed with a big A; and, thinking this,
+he felt that the first thing to be done in the matter was to forget
+Miss Nellie and his love for her as speedily as possible. How far he
+succeeded in doing this we shall probably see in the sequel. At present
+we have to do with the attempt only. New scenes and new people, Mr.
+Pagebrook thought, would greatly aid him in his purpose, and so the trip
+to Virginia seemed peculiarly fitting. It thus comes about that the
+scene of this young man's story suddenly shifts from Philadelphia to a
+Virginian country house, in spite of all I can do to preserve the
+dramatic unity of place. Ah! if I were <i>making</i> this story now, I could
+confine it to a single room, compress its action into a single day, and
+do other dramatic and highly proper things; but as Mr. Robert Pagebrook
+and his friends were not stage people, and, moreover, as they were not
+aware that their goings and comings would ever weave themselves into the
+woof of a story at all, they utterly failed to regulate their actions in
+accordance with critical rules, and went roving about over the country
+quite in a natural way and without the slightest regard for my
+convenience.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook learns something about the Customs of the Country.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>When our two young men reached the station at which they were to leave
+the cars, they found awaiting them there the lumbering old carriage
+which had been a part of the Shirley establishment ever since Mr. Billy
+could remember. This vehicle was known to everybody in the neighborhood
+as the Shirley carriage, not because it was older or clumsier or uglier
+than its fellows, for indeed it was not, but merely because every
+carriage in a Virginian neighborhood is known to everybody quite as well
+as its owner is. To Mr. Robert Pagebrook, however, the vehicle presented
+itself as an antique and a curiosity. Its body was suspended by leathern
+straps which came out of some high semicircular springs at the back, and
+it was thus raised so far above the axles that one could enter it only
+by mounting quite a stairway of steps, which unfolded themselves from
+its interior. Swinging thus by its leathern straps, the great heavy
+carriage body really seemed to have no support at all, and Mr. Robert
+found it necessary to exercise all the faith there was in him in order
+to believe that to get inside of the vehicle was not a sure and speedy
+way of securing two or three broken bones. He got in, however, at his
+cousin's invitation, and soon discovered that although the motion of the
+suspended carriage body closely resembled that of a fore and aft
+schooner in a gale, it was by no means unpleasant, as the worst that the
+roughest road could do was to make the vibratory motion a trifle more
+decided than usual in its nature. A jolt was simply impossible.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he got his sea legs on sufficiently to keep himself tolerably
+steady on his seat, Mr. Rob began to look at the country or, more
+properly, to study the road-side, there being little else visible, so
+thickly grew the trees and underbrush on each side.</p>
+
+<p>"How far must we drive before reaching Shirley?" he asked after awhile,
+as the carriage stopped for the opening of a gate.</p>
+
+<p>"About four miles now," said his cousin. "It's five miles, or nearly
+that, from the Court House."</p>
+
+<p>"The court house? Where is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"O the village where we left the train! That's the Court House."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you Virginians call a village a court house, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, when it's the county-seat and a'n't much else. Now and then
+court houses put on airs and call themselves names, but they don't often
+make much of it. There's Powhatan Court House now, I believe it tried to
+get itself called 'Scottsville,' or something of that sort, but nobody
+knows it as anything but Powhatan Court House. Our county-seat has
+always been modest, and if it has any name I never heard of it."</p>
+
+<p>"That's one interesting custom of the country, at any rate. Pray tell
+me, is it another of your customs to dispense wholly with public roads?
+I ask for information merely, and the question is suggested by the fact
+that we seem to have driven away from the Court House by the private
+road which we are still following."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, this isn't a private road. It's one of the principal public roads
+of the county."</p>
+
+<p>"How about these gates then?" asked Robert as the negro boy who rode
+behind the carriage jumped down to open another.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what about them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I never saw a gate across a public thoroughfare before. Do you
+really permit such things in Virginia?"</p>
+
+<p>"O yes! certainly. It saves a great deal of fencing, and the Court never
+refuses permission to put up a gate in any reasonable place, only the
+owner is bound to make it easy to open on horseback&mdash;or, as you would
+put it, 'by a person riding on horseback.' You see I'm growing
+circumspect in my choice of words since I've been with you. May be
+you'll reform us all, and make us talk tolerably good English before you
+go back. If you do, I'll give you some 'testimonials' to your worth as a
+professor."</p>
+
+<p>"But about those gates, Billy. I am all the more interested in them now
+that I know them as another 'custom of the country.' How do their owners
+keep them shut? Don't people leave them open pretty often?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never; a Virginian is always 'on honor' so far as his neighbors are
+concerned, and the man who would leave a neighbor's gate open might as
+well take to stealing at once for all the difference it would make in
+his social standing."</p>
+
+<p>It was not only the gates, but the general appearance of the road as
+well, that astonished young Pagebrook: a public road, consisting of a
+single carriage track, with a grass plat on each side, fringed with
+thick undergrowth and overhung by the branches of great trees, was to
+him a novelty, and a very pleasant novelty too, in which he was greatly
+interested.</p>
+
+<p>"Who lives there?" asked Robert, as a large house came into view.</p>
+
+<p>"That's The Oaks, Cousin Edwin's place."</p>
+
+<p>"And who is your Cousin Edwin?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>My</i> Cousin Edwin? He's yours too, I reckon. Cousin Edwin Pagebrook. He
+is our second cousin or, as the old ladies put it, first cousin once
+removed."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray tell me what a first cousin once removed is, will you not, Billy?
+I am wholly ignorant on the subject of cousinhood in its higher
+branches, and as I understand that a good deal of stress is laid upon
+relationships of this sort in Virginia, I should like to inform myself
+in advance if possible."</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't know whether I can or not. Any of the old ladies will
+lay it all out to you, illustrating it with their keys arranged like a
+genealogical tree. I don't know much about it, but I reckon I can make
+you understand this much, as I have Cousin Edwin's case to go by. It's a
+'case in point' as we lawyers say. Let's see. Cousin Edwin's
+grandfather was our great grandfather; then his father was our
+grandfather's brother, and that makes him first cousin to my mother and
+your father. Now I would call mother's first cousin my second cousin,
+but the old ladies, who pay a good deal of attention to these matters,
+say not. They say that my mother's or my father's first cousin is my
+first cousin once removed, and his children are my second cousins, and
+they prove it all, too, with their keys."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," asked Robert, "if that is so, what is the exact
+relationship between Cousin Edwin's children and my father or your
+mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"O don't! You bewilder me. I told you I didn't know anything about it.
+You must get some old lady to explain it with her keys, and when she
+gets through you won't know who you are, to save you."</p>
+
+<p>"That is encouraging, certainly," said Mr. Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"O it's no matter! You're safe enough in calling everybody around here
+'cousin' if you're sure they a'n't any closer kin. The fact is, all the
+best families here have intermarried so often that the relationships are
+all mixed up, and we always claim kin when there is any ghost of a
+chance for it. Besides, the Pagebrooks are the biggest tadpoles in the
+puddle; and so, if they don't 'cousin' all their kin-folks people think
+they're stuck-up."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Billy; but tell me, am I, being a Pagebrook, under any
+consequent obligation to consider myself a tadpole during my stay in
+Virginia?"</p>
+
+<p>Billy's only answer was a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Billy," Robert resumed, "tell me about the people of Shirley. I
+am sadly ignorant, you understand, and I do not wish to make mistakes.
+Begin at top, and tell me how I shall call them all."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's father; you will call him Uncle Carter, of course. He is
+Col. Carter Barksdale, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew his name was Carter, of course, but I did not know he had ever
+been a military man."</p>
+
+<p>"A military man! No, he never was. What made you think that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why you called him 'Colonel.'"</p>
+
+<p>"O that's nothing! You'll find every gentleman past middle age wearing
+some sort of title or other. They call father 'Colonel Barksdale,' and
+Cousin Edwin 'Major Pagebrook,' though neither of them ever saw a tent
+that I know of."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! another interesting custom of the country. But pray go on."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, mother is 'Aunt Mary,' you know, and then there's Aunt
+Catherine."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! who is she? Is she my aunt?"</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't know. Let me see. No, I reckon not; nor mine either, for
+that matter. I think she's father's fourth or fifth cousin, with a
+remove or two added, possibly, but you must call her 'Aunt' anyhow; we
+all do, and she'd never forgive you if you didn't. You see she knew your
+father, and I reckon he called her 'Aunt.' It's a way we have here. She
+is a maiden lady, you understand, and Shirley is her home. You'll find
+somebody of that sort in nearly every house, and they're a delightful
+sort of somebody, too, to have round. She'll post you up on
+relationships. She can use up a whole key-basket full of keys, and run
+'em over by name backwards or forwards, just as you please. You needn't
+follow her though if you object to a headache. All you've got to do is
+to let her tell you about it, and you say 'yes' now and then. She puts
+me through every week or so. Then there's Cousin Sudie, my father's
+niece and ward. She's been an orphan almost all her life, and so she's
+always lived with us. Father is her guardian, and he always calls her
+'daughter.' You'll call her 'Cousin Sue,' of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Then she is akin to me too, is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. She's father's own brother's child."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Billy, your father is only my uncle by marriage, and I do not
+understand how&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"O bother! If you're going to count it up, I reckon there a'n't any real
+relationship; but she's your cousin, anyhow, and you'll offend her if
+you refuse to own it. Call her 'Cousin,' and be done with it."</p>
+
+<p>"Being one of the large Pagebrook tadpoles, I suppose I must. However,
+in the case of a young lady, I shall not find it difficult, I dare
+say."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook makes Some Acquaintances.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Robert had often heard of "an Old Virginian welcome," but precisely
+what constituted it he never knew until the carriage in which he rode
+drove around the "circle" and stopped in front of the Shirley mansion.
+The first thing which struck him as peculiar about the preparations made
+for his reception was the large number of small negroes who thought
+their presence necessary to the occasion. Little black faces grinned at
+him from behind every tree, and about a dozen of them peered out from a
+safe position behind "ole mas'r and ole missus." Mr. Billy had
+telegraphed from Richmond announcing the coming of his guest, and so
+every darkey on the plantation knew that "Mas' Joe's son" was "a comin'
+wid Mas' Billy from de Norf," and every one that could find a safe
+hiding place in the yard was there to see him come.</p>
+
+<p>Col. Barksdale met him at the carriage while the ladies were in waiting
+on the porch, as anybody but a Virginian would put it&mdash;<i>in</i> the porch,
+as they themselves would have phrased it. The welcome was of the right
+hearty order which nobody ever saw outside of Virginia&mdash;a welcome which
+made the guest feel himself at once a very part of the establishment.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the house our young friend found himself sorely puzzled. The
+furniture was old in style but very elegant, a thing for which he was
+fully prepared, but it stood upon absolutely bare white floors. There
+were both damask and lace curtains at the windows, but not a vestige of
+carpet was anywhere to be seen. Mr. Robert said nothing, but wondered
+silently whether it was possible that he had arrived in the midst of
+house-cleaning. Conversation, luncheon, and finally dinner at four,
+occupied his attention, however, and after dinner the whole family
+gathered in the porch&mdash;for really I believe the Virginians are right
+about that preposition. I will ask Mr. Robert himself some day.</p>
+
+<p>He soon found himself thoroughly at home in the old family mansion,
+among relatives who had never been strangers to him in any proper sense
+of the term. Not only was Mrs. Barksdale his father's sister, but Col.
+Barksdale himself had been that father's nearest friend. The two had
+gone west together to seek their fortunes there; but the Colonel had
+returned after a few years to practice his profession in his native
+state and ultimately to marry his friend's sister. Mr. Robert soon felt
+himself literally at home, therefore, and the feeling was intensely
+enjoyable, too, to a young man who for ten years had not known any home
+other than that of a bachelor's quarters in a college community. His
+reception at Shirley had not been the greeting of a guest but rather the
+welcoming of a long wandering son of the house. To his relatives there
+he seemed precisely that, and their feeling in the case soon became his
+own. This "clannishness," as it is called, may not be peculiar to
+Virginia of all the states, but I have never seen it half so strongly
+manifested anywhere else as there.</p>
+
+<p>Toward evening Maj. Pagebrook and his son Ewing rode over to call upon
+their cousin Robert, and after the introductions were over, "Cousin
+Edwin" went on to talk of Robert's father, for whom he had felt an
+unusual degree of affection, as all the relatives had, for that matter,
+Robert's father having been an especial favorite in the family. Then the
+conversation became more general.</p>
+
+<p>"When are you going to cut that field of tobacco by the prize barn,
+Cousin Edwin?" asked Billy. "I see it's ripening pretty rapidly."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is getting pretty ripe in spots, and I wanted to put the hands
+into it yesterday," replied Maj. Pagebrook; "but Sarah Ann thought we'd
+better keep them plowing for wheat a day or two longer, and now I'm
+afraid it's going to rain before I can get a first cutting done."</p>
+
+<p>"How much did you get for the tobacco you sent to Richmond the other
+day, Edwin?" asked the colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"Only five dollars and three cents a hundred, average."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd have done a good deal better if you'd sold in the spring,
+wouldn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a good deal. I wanted to sell then, but Sarah Ann insisted on
+holding it till fall. By the way, I'm going to put all my lots, except
+the one by the creek, in corn next year, and raise hardly any tobacco."</p>
+
+<p>"All but the creek lot? Why that's the only good corn land you have,
+Edwin, and it isn't safe to put tobacco in it either, for it overflows a
+little."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know it. But Sarah Ann is discouraged by the price we got for
+tobacco this year, and doesn't want me to plant the lots next season at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you bring Cousin Sarah Ann over and come to dinner to-day,
+Cousin Edwin?" asked Miss Barksdale, coming out of the dining-room,
+key-basket in hand, to speak to the guests.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! we've only one carriage horse now, you know. I sold the black last
+week, and haven't been able to find another yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Sold the black! Why, what was that for, Cousin Ed! I thought you
+specially liked him?" said Billy.</p>
+
+<p>"So I did; but Sarah Ann didn't like a black and a gray together, and
+she wouldn't let me sell the gray on any terms, though I could have
+matched the black at once. Winger has a colt well broken that's a
+perfect match for him. Come, Ewing, we must be going. Sarah Ann said we
+must be home to tea without fail. You'll come to The Oaks, Robert, of
+course. Sarah Ann will expect you very soon, and you mustn't stand on
+ceremony, you know, but come as often as you can while you stay at
+Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of Cousin Edwin, Bob?" asked Billy when the guests
+had gone.</p>
+
+<p>"That he is a very excellent person, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And what? Speak out. Let's hear what you think."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that he is a very dutiful husband."</p>
+
+<p>"Bob, I'd give a pretty for your knack at saying things. Your tongue's
+as soft as a feather bed. But wait till you know the madam. You'll
+say&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My son, you shouldn't prejudice Robert against people he doesn't know.
+Sarah Ann has many good qualities&mdash;I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I don't suppose anything of the sort, else she would have
+found out how good a man Cousin Edwin is long ago, and would have
+behaved herself better every way."</p>
+
+<p>"William, you are uncharitable!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of it, mother. Your charity is like a microscope when it is
+hunting for something good to say of people. Did you ever hear of the
+dead Dutchman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do pray, Billy, don't tell me any of your anecdotes now."</p>
+
+<p>"Just this one, mother. There was a dead Dutchman who had been the worst
+Dutchman in the business. When the people came to sit up with his
+corpse&mdash;don't run, mother, I'm nearly through&mdash;they couldn't find
+anything good to say about him, and as they didn't want to say anything
+bad there was a profound silence in the room. Finally one old Dutchman,
+heaving a sigh, remarked: 'Vell, Hans vas vone goot schmoker, anyhow.'
+Let me see. Cousin Sarah Ann gives good dinners, anyhow, only she piles
+too much on the table. See how charitable I am, mother. I have actually
+found and designated the madam's one good point."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, my son," said the colonel, "you shouldn't talk so."</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after tea the two young men pleaded the weariness of travelers
+in excuse for an early bed going. Mr. Bob was offered his choice between
+occupying alone the Blue Room, which is the state guest chamber in most
+Virginian houses, and taking a bed in Billy's room. He promptly chose
+the latter, and when they were alone, he turned to his cousin and asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Billy, have you such a thing as a dictionary about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing but a law dictionary, I believe. Will that do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Really I do not know. Perhaps it might."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want to find?" asked Billy.</p>
+
+<p>"I only wish to ascertain whether or not we arrived here in time for
+'snack.' You said we would, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we did, didn't we?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is precisely what I wish to find out. Having never heard of
+'snack' until you mentioned it as one of the things we should find at
+Shirley, I have been curious to know what it is like, and so I have been
+watching for it ever since we got here. Pray tell me what it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's a good one. I must tell Sudie that, and get her to
+introduce you formally to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"It is another interesting custom of the country, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed it is; and it isn't one of those customs that are 'more honored
+in the breach than the observance,' either."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook makes a Good Impression.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Young Pagebrook was an early riser. Not that he was afflicted with one
+of those unfortunate consciences which make of early rising a penance,
+by any means. He was not prejudiced against lying abed, nor bigoted
+about getting up. He quoted no adages on the subject, and was not
+illogical enough to believe that getting up early and yawning for an
+hour or two every morning would bring health, wisdom, or wealth to
+anybody. In short, he was an early riser not on principle but of
+necessity. Somehow his eyelids had a way of popping themselves open
+about sunrise or earlier, and his great brawny limbs could not be kept
+in bed long after this happened. He got up for precisely the same reason
+that most people lie abed, namely, because there was nothing else to do.
+On the morning after his arrival at Shirley he awoke early and heard two
+things which attracted his attention. The first was a sound which
+puzzled him more than a little. It was a steady, monotonous scraping of
+a most unaccountable kind&mdash;somewhat like the sound of a carpenter's
+plane and somewhat like that of a saw. Had it been out of doors he
+would have thought nothing of it; but clearly it was in the house, and
+not only so, but in every part of the house except the bedrooms. Scrape,
+scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape. What it meant he could not guess. As he
+lay there wondering about it he heard another sound, greatly more
+musical, at which he jumped out of bed and began dressing, wondering at
+this sound, too, quite as much as at the other, though he knew perfectly
+well that this was nothing more than a human voice&mdash;Miss Sudie's, to
+wit. He wondered if there ever was such a voice before or ever would be
+again. Not that the young woman was singing, for she was doing nothing
+of the sort. She was merely giving some directions to the servants about
+household matters, but her voice was music nevertheless, and Mr. Bob
+made up his mind to hear it to better advantage by going down-stairs at
+once. Now I happen to know that this young woman's voice was in no way
+peculiar to herself. Every well-bred girl in Virginia has the same rich,
+full, soft tone, and they all say, as she did, "grauss," "glauss"
+"bausket," "cyarpet," "cyart," "gyarden," and "gyirl." But it so
+happened that Mr. Bob had never heard a Virginian girl talk before he
+met Miss Barksdale, and to him her rich German a's and the musical tones
+of her voice were peculiarly her own. Perhaps all these things would
+have impressed him differently if "Cousin Sudie" had been an ugly girl.
+I have no means of determining the point, inasmuch as "Cousin Sudie" was
+certainly anything else than ugly.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Robert made a hasty toilet and descended to the great hall, or
+passage, as they call it in Virginia. As he did so he discovered the
+origin of the scraping sound which had puzzled him, as it puzzles
+everybody else who hears it for the first time. Dry "pine tags" (which
+is Virginian for the needles of the pine) were scattered all over the
+floors, and several negro women were busy polishing the hard white
+planks by rubbing them with an indescribable implement made of a section
+of log, a dozen corn husks ("shucks," the Virginians call them&mdash;a "corn
+husk" in Virginia signifying a <i>cob</i> always), and a pole for handle.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, Cousin Robert. You're up soon," said the little woman,
+coming out of the dining-room and putting a soft, warm little hand in
+his great palm.</p>
+
+<p>Now to young Pagebrook this was a totally new use of the word "soon,"
+and I dare say he would have been greatly interested in it but for the
+fact that the trim little woman who stood there, key-basket in hand,
+interested him more.</p>
+
+<p>"You've caught me in the midst of my housekeeping, but never mind; only
+be careful, or you'll slip on the pine tags; they're as slippery as
+glass."</p>
+
+<p>"And is that the reason they are scattered on the floor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we polish with them. Up North you wax your floors instead, don't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, for balls and the like, I believe, but commonly we have carpets."</p>
+
+<p>"What! in summer time, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"O yes! certainly, Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, they're so warm. We take ours up soon in the spring, and never put
+them down again until fall."</p>
+
+<p>This time Mr. Robert observed the queer use of the word "soon," but said
+nothing about it. He said instead:</p>
+
+<p>"What a lovely morning it is! How I should like to ride horseback in
+this air!"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you let me ride with you?" asked the little maiden.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a question, Cousin Sudie!"</p>
+
+<p>Now I am free to confess that this last remark was unworthy Mr.
+Pagebrook. If not ungrammatical, it is at least of questionable
+construction, and so not at all like Mr. Pagebrook's usage. But the
+demoralizing effect of Miss Sudie Barksdale's society did not stop here
+by any means, as we shall see in due time.</p>
+
+<p>"If you'd really like to ride, I'll have the horses brought," said the
+little lady.</p>
+
+<p>"And you with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if I may."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be more than happy."</p>
+
+<p>"Dick, run up to the barn and tell Uncle Polidore to saddle Patty for me
+and Graybeard for your Mas' Robert. Do you hear? Excuse me, Cousin
+Robert, and I'll put on my habit."</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later the pair reined in their horses on the top of a little
+hill, to look at the sunrise. The morning was just cool enough to be
+thoroughly pleasant, and the exhilaration which comes of nothing else so
+surely as of rapid riding began to tell upon the spirits of both.
+Cousin Sudie was a good rider and a graceful one, and she knew it.
+Robert's riding hitherto had been done, for the most part, in cities,
+and on smooth roads; but he held his horse with a firm hand, and
+controlled him perforce of a strong will, which, with great personal
+fearlessness and a habit of doing well whatever he undertook to do at
+all, and undertaking whatever was expected of him, abundantly supplied
+the lack he had of experience in the rougher riding of Virginia on the
+less perfectly trained horses in use there. He was a stalwart fellow,
+with shapely limbs and perfect ease of movement, so that on horseback he
+was a very agreeable young gentleman to look at, a fact of which Miss
+Sudie speedily became conscious. Her rides were chiefly without a
+cavalier, as they were usually taken early in the morning before her
+cousin Billy thought of getting up; and naturally enough she enjoyed the
+presence of so agreeable a young gentleman as Mr. Rob certainly was, and
+her enjoyment of his company&mdash;she being a woman&mdash;was not diminished in
+the least by the discovery that to his intellectual and social
+accomplishments, which were very genuine, there were added a handsome
+face, a comely person, and a manly enthusiasm for out-door exercise.
+When he pulled some wild flowers which grew by the road-side without
+dismounting&mdash;a trick he had picked up somewhere&mdash;she wondered at the
+ease and grace with which it was done; when he added to the flowers a
+little cluster of purple berries from a wild vine, of which I do not
+know the name, and a sprig of sumac, still wet with dew, she admired his
+taste; and when he gallantly asked leave to twine the whole into her
+hair, for her hat had come off, as good-looking young women's hats
+always do on such occasions, she thought him "just nice."</p>
+
+<p>It is really astonishing how rapidly acquaintanceships form under
+favorable circumstances. These two young people were shy, both of them,
+and on the preceding day had hardly spoken to each other at all. When
+they mounted their horses that morning they were almost strangers, and
+they might have remained only half acquaintances for a week or a
+fortnight but for that morning's ride. They were gone an hour, perhaps,
+in all, and when they sat down to breakfast they were on terms of easy
+familiarity and genuine friendship.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook Learns Several Things.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>After breakfast Robert walked out with Billy to see the negroes at work
+cutting tobacco, an interesting operation always, and especially so when
+one sees it for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>"Gilbert," said Billy to his "head man," "did you find any ripe enough
+to cut in the lot there by the prize barn?"</p>
+
+<p>"No sah; dat's de greenest lot of tobawkah on de plantation, for all
+'twas plaunted fust. I dunno what to make uv it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Billy, I thought Cousin Edwin owned the 'prize' barn!" said
+Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"So he does&mdash;his."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there two of them then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two of them? What do you mean? Every plantation has its prize barn, of
+course."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! Who gives the prizes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha! Bob, that's good; only you'd better ask <i>me</i> always when you
+want to know about things here, else you'll get yourself laughed at. A
+prize barn is simply the barn in which we prize tobacco."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is 'prizing' tobacco?"</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly 'prize' a'n't good English, Bob, but it's the standard
+Ethiopian for pressing, and everybody here uses it. We press the tobacco
+in hogsheads, you know, and we call it prizing. It never struck me as a
+peculiarly Southern use of the word, but perhaps it is for all that.
+You're as sharp set as a circular saw after dialect, a'n't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I really do not know precisely how sharp set a circular saw is, but I
+am greatly interested in your peculiar uses of English, certainly."</p>
+
+<p>Upon returning to the house Billy said:</p>
+
+<p>"Bob I must let you take care of yourself for two or three hours now, as
+I have some papers to draw up and they won't wait. Next week is court
+week, and I've got a great deal to do between now and then. But you're
+at home you know, old fellow."</p>
+
+<p>So saying Mr. Billy went to his office, which was situated in the yard,
+while Robert strolled into the house. Looking into the dining-room he
+saw there Cousin Sudie. Possibly the young gentleman was looking for
+her. I am sure I do not know. But whether he had expected to find her
+there or not, he certainly felt some little surprise as he looked at
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Cousin Sudie, is it possible that you are washing the dishes?"</p>
+
+<p>"O certainly! and the plates and cups too. In fact, I wash up all the
+things once a day."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray tell me, cousin, precisely what you understand by 'dishes,' if I'm
+not intruding," said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"O not at all! come in and sit down. You'll find it pleasanter there by
+the window. 'Dishes?' Why, that is a dish, and that and that," pointing
+to them.</p>
+
+<p>"I see. The word 'dishes' is not a generic term in Virginia, but applies
+only to platters and vegetable dishes. What do you call them in the
+aggregate, Cousin Sudie? I mean plates, platters, cups, saucers, and
+everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Why 'things,' I suppose. We speak of 'breakfast things,' 'tea things,'
+'dinner things.' But why were you astonished to see me washing them,
+Cousin Robert?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I ought to have known better, but the fact is I had an
+impression that Southern ladies were wholly exempt from all work except,
+perhaps, a little embroidery or some such thing."</p>
+
+<p>"O my! I wish you could see me during circuit court week, when Uncle
+Carter and Cousin Billy bring the judge and the lawyers home with them
+at all sorts of odd hours; and they always bring the hungriest ones
+there are too. I fall at once into a chronic state of washing up things,
+and don't recover until court is over."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus2" id="illus2"></a>
+<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"I FALL AT ONCE INTO A CHRONIC STATE UP WASHING UP THINGS."</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>"But really, cousin&mdash;pardon me if I am inquisitive, for I am greatly
+interested in this life here in Virginia, it is so new to me&mdash;how is it
+that <i>you</i> must wash up things at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I carry the keys, you know. I'm housekeeper."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but you have servants enough, certainly, and to spare."</p>
+
+<p>"O yes! but every lady washes up the things at least once a day. It
+would never do to trust it altogether to the servants, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"None of them are sufficiently careful and trustworthy, do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, not exactly that; but it's our way here, and if a lady were to
+neglect it people would think her a poor housekeeper."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there any other duties devolving upon Virginian housekeepers
+besides 'washing up things?' You see I am trying to learn all I can of a
+life which is as charmingly strange to me as that of Turkey or China
+would be if I were to go to either country."</p>
+
+<p>"Any other duties? Indeed there are, and you shall learn what they are,
+if you won't find it stupid to go my rounds with me. I'm going now."</p>
+
+<p>"I should find dullness itself interesting with you as my fellow
+observer of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Right gallantly said, kind sir," said Miss Sudie, with an exaggerated
+curtsy. "But if you're going to make pretty speeches I'll get impudent
+directly. I'm dreadfully given to it anyhow, and I've a notion to say
+one impudent thing right now."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray do. I pardon you in advance."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, what makes you say 'Virginian housekeepers?'"</p>
+
+<p>"What else should I say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Virginia housekeepers, of course, like anybody else."</p>
+
+<p>"But 'Virginia' is not an adjective, cousin. You would not say 'England
+housekeepers' or 'France housekeepers,' would you?" asked Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I would say 'New York housekeepers,' 'Massachusetts
+housekeepers,' or 'New Jersey housekeepers,' and so I say 'Virginia
+housekeepers,' too. I reckon you would find it a little troublesome to
+carry out your rule, wouldn't you, Cousin Robert?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am fairly beaten, I own; and in consideration of my frank
+acknowledgment of defeat, perhaps you will permit <i>me</i> to be a trifle
+impudent."</p>
+
+<p>"After that gallant speech you made just now, I can hardly believe such
+a thing possible. But let me hear you try, please."</p>
+
+<p>"O it's very possible, I assure you!" said Robert. "See if it is not.
+What I want to ask is, why you Virginians so often use the word 'reckon'
+in the sense of 'think' or 'presume,' as you did a moment since?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it's right," said Sudie.</p>
+
+<p>"No, cousin, it is not good English," replied Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not, but it's <i>good Virginian</i>, and that's better for my
+purposes. Besides, it must be good English. St. Paul used it twice."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he? I was not aware that the Apostle to the Gentiles spoke English
+at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Cousin Robert, I must give out dinner now. Do you want to carry
+my key-basket?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Miss Sudie makes an Apt Quotation.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>My friend who writes novels tells me that there is no other kind of
+exercise which so perfectly rests an over-tasked brain as riding on
+horseback does. His theory is that when the mind is overworked it will
+not quit working at command, but goes on with the labor after the tools
+have been laid aside. If the worker goes to bed, either he finds it
+impossible to go to sleep or sleeping he dreams, his mind thus working
+harder in sleep than if he were awake. Walking, this novelist friend
+says, affords no relief. On the contrary, one thinks better when walking
+than at any other time. But on horseback he finds it impossible to
+confine his thoughts to any subject for two minutes together. He may
+begin as many trains of thought as he chooses, but he never gets past
+their beginning. The motion of the animal jolts it all up into a jumble,
+and rest is the inevitable result. The man's animal spirits rise, in
+sympathy, perhaps, with those of his horse, and as the animal in him
+begins to assert itself his intellect yields to its master and suffers
+itself to become quiescent.</p>
+
+<p>Now it is possible that Mr. Robert Pagebrook had found out this fact
+about horseback exercise, and determined to profit by it to the extent
+of securing all the intellectual rest he could during his stay at
+Shirley. At any rate, his early morning ride with "Cousin Sudie" was
+repeated, not once, but every day when decided rain did not interfere.
+He became greatly interested, too, in the Virginian system of
+housekeeping, and made daily study of it in company with Miss Sudie,
+whose key-basket he carried as she went her rounds from dining-room to
+smoke-house, from smoke-house to store-room, from store-room to garden,
+and from garden to the shady gable of the house, where Miss Sudie "set"
+the churn every morning, a process which consisted of scalding it out,
+putting in the cream, and wrapping wet cloths all over the head of it
+and far up the dasher handle, as a precaution against the possible
+results of carelessness on the part of the half dozen little darkeys
+whose daily duty it was to "chun." Mr. Robert soon became well versed in
+all the mysteries of "giving out" dinner and other things pertaining to
+the office of housekeeper&mdash;an office in which every Virginian woman
+takes pride, and one in the duties of which every well-bred Virginian
+girl is thoroughly skilled. (Corollary&mdash;good dinners and general
+comfort.)</p>
+
+<p>Old "Aunty" cooks are always extremely slow of motion, and so the young
+ladies who carry the keys have a good deal of necessary leisure during
+their morning rounds. Miss Sudie had a pretty little habit, as a good
+many other young women there have, of carrying a book in her key-basket,
+so that she might read while aunt Kizzey (I really do not know of what
+proper noun this very common one is an abbreviation) made up her tray.
+Picking up a volume he found there one morning, Robert continued a
+desultory conversation by saying:</p>
+
+<p>"You don't read Montaigne, do you, Cousin Sudie?"</p>
+
+<p>"O yes! I read everything&mdash;or anything, rather. I never saw a book I
+couldn't get something out of, except Longfellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Except Longfellow!" exclaimed Robert in surprise. "Is it possible you
+don't enjoy Longfellow? Why, that is heresy of the rankest kind!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it is, but I'm a heretic in a good many things. I hate
+Longfellow's hexameters; I don't like Tennyson; and I can't understand
+Browning any better than he understands himself. I know I ought to like
+them all, as you all up North do, but I don't."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Robert was shocked. Here was a young girl, fresh and healthy, who
+could read prosy old Montaigne's chatter with interest; who knew Pope by
+heart, and Dryden almost as well; who read the prose and poetry of the
+eighteenth century constantly, as he knew; and who, on a former
+occasion, had pleaded guilty to a liking for sonnets, but who could find
+nothing to like in Tennyson, Longfellow, or Browning. Somehow the
+discovery was not an agreeable one to him though he could hardly say
+why, and so he chose not to pursue the subject further just then. He
+said instead:</p>
+
+<p>"That is the queerest Virginianism I've heard yet&mdash;'you all.'"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a very convenient one, you'll admit, and a Virginian don't care
+to go far out of his way in such things."</p>
+
+<p>"You will think me critical this morning, Cousin Sudie, but I often
+wonder at the carelessness, not of Virginians only, but of everybody
+else, in the use of contractions. 'Don't,' for instance, is well enough
+as a contraction for 'do not, but nearly everybody uses it, as you did
+just now, for 'does not.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Do don't lecture me, Cousin Robert. I'm a heretic, I tell you, in
+grammar."</p>
+
+<p>"'Do don't' is the richest provincialism I have heard yet, Cousin Sudie.
+I really must make a note of that."</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Robert, do you read Montaigne?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember what he says about custom and grammar?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"He says it, remember, and not I. He says 'they that fight custom with
+grammar are fools.' What a rude old fellow he was, wasn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pagebrook suddenly remembered that he was to dine that day at his
+cousin Edwin's house, and that it was time for him to go, as he intended
+to walk, Graybeard having fallen lame during that morning's gallop with
+Miss Sudie.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook Meets an Acquaintance.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Robert left the house on his way to The Oaks in an excellent humor
+with himself and with everybody else. His cousin Billy and his uncle
+Col. Barksdale were both absent, in attendance upon a court in another
+county, and so Mr. Robert had recently been left almost alone with Miss
+Sudie, and now that they had become the very best of friends our young
+man enjoyed this state of affairs right heartily. In truth Miss Sudie
+was a young lady very much to Mr. Robert's taste, in saying which I pay
+that young gentleman as handsome a compliment as any well regulated man
+could wish.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Robert walked briskly out of the front gate and down the road,
+enjoying the bright sun and the rich coloring of the October woodlands,
+and making merry in his heart by running over in his memory the chats he
+had been having of late with the little woman who carried the keys at
+Shirley. If he had been forced to tell precisely what had been said in
+those conversations, it must be confessed that a stranger would have
+found very little of interest in the repetition, but somehow the
+recollection brought a frequent smile to our young friend's face and
+put an additional springiness into his step. His intercourse with this
+cousin by brevet may not have been especially brilliant or of a nature
+calculated to be particularly interesting to other people, but to him it
+had been extremely agreeable, without doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"Mornin' Mas' Robert," said Phil, as Robert passed the place at which
+the old negro was working. "How is ye dis mornin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, Phil. I am very well, I thank you. How are you, Phil?"</p>
+
+<p>"Poorly, thank God. Ha! ha! ha! Dat's de way Bro' Joe and all de folks
+always says it. Dey never will own up to bein' rale well. But I tell ye
+now Mas' Robert, Phil's a well nigger <i>always</i>. I keeps up my eend de
+row all de time. I kin knock de spots out de work all day, daunce jigs
+till two o'clock, an' go 'possum huntin' till mornin' comes. Is ye ever
+been 'possum huntin', Mas' Robert?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I believe I never hunted opossums, but I should greatly like to try
+it, Phil."</p>
+
+<p>"Would ye? Gim me yer han' Mas' Robert. You jes set de time now, and if
+Phil don't show you de sights o' 'possum huntin' you ken call me a po'
+white folkses nigger. Dat's a fac'."</p>
+
+<p>Robert promised to make the necessary appointment in due time, and was
+just starting off again on his tramp, when Phil asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Whare ye boun' dis mornin', Mas' Robert?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going over to dine at The Oaks, Phil."</p>
+
+<p>"Yer jest out de house in time. Dar comes Mas' Charles Harrison."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not understand you, Phil. Why do you say I am out of the house
+just in time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mas' Robert, is you got two good eyes? Mas' Charles is a doctor you
+know, but dey a'n't nobody sick at Shirley. May be he's afraid Miss
+Sudie's gwine to get sick. Hi! git up Roley! dis a'n't plowin' mauster's
+field: g'long I tell ye!"</p>
+
+<p>As Phil turned away Dr. Harrison rode up.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, Mr. Pagebrook. On your way to The Oaks?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was, but if you are going to Shirley I will walk back with you!"</p>
+
+<p>"O no! no! I am only going to stop there a moment. I am on my way to see
+some patients at Exenholm, and as I had to go past Shirley I brought the
+mail, that's all. I'll not be there ten minutes, and I know they're
+expecting you at The Oaks. I brought Ewing along with me from the Court
+House. Foggy had been too much for him again."</p>
+
+<p>"Why the boy promised me he would not gamble again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! it's hardly gambling. Only a little game of loo. Every gentleman
+plays a little. I take a hand myself, now and then; but Foggy is a
+pretty old bird, you know, and he's too much for your cousin. Ewing
+oughtn't to play with <i>him</i>, of course, and that's why I brought him
+away with me. By the way, we're going to get a fox up in a day or two
+and show you some sport. The tobacco's all cut now, and the dogs are in
+capital order&mdash;as thin as a lath. You must be with us, of course. We'll
+get up one in pine quarter, and he's sure to run towards the river; so
+you can come in as the hounds pass Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to see a fox hunt, certainly, but I have no proper
+horse," said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, where's Graybeard? Billy told me he had turned him over to you to
+use and abuse."</p>
+
+<p>"So he did, and he is riding his bay at present. But Graybeard is quite
+lame just now."</p>
+
+<p>"Ride the bay then. Billy will be back from court to-night, won't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but he will want to join in the chase, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon he will, but he can ride something else. He don't often care
+to take the tail, and he can see as much as he likes on one of his
+'conestogas.' I'll tell you what you can do. Winger's got a splendid
+colt, pretty well broken, and you can get him for a dollar or two if you
+a'n't afraid to ride him. You must manage it somehow, so as to be 'in at
+the death!' I want you to see some riding."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Robert promised to see what he could do. He greatly wanted to ride
+after the hounds for once at least, though it must be confessed he would
+have been better pleased had the hounds to be ridden after belonged to
+somebody else besides the gentleman familiarly known as "Foggy," a
+personage for whom Mr. Robert had certainly not conceived a very great
+liking. That the reader may know whether his prejudice was a
+well-founded one or not it will be necessary for me to go back a little
+and gather up some of the loose threads of my story, while our young man
+is on his way to The Oaks. I have been so deeply interested in the
+ripening acquaintanceship between Mr. Rob and Miss Sudie that I have
+neglected to introduce some other personages, less agreeable perhaps,
+but not less important to the proper understanding of this history.
+Leaving young Pagebrook on the road, therefore, let me tell the reader,
+in a new chapter, something about the people he had met outside the
+hospitable Shirley mansion.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Chiefly Concerning "Foggy."</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Dr. Charles Harrison was a young man of twenty-five or six, a distant
+relative of the Barksdales&mdash;so distant indeed that he would never have
+known himself as a relative at all, if he and they had not been
+Virginians. He was a young man of good parts, fond of field sports,
+reasonably well behaved in all external matters, but without any very
+fixed moral principles. He was a gentleman, in the strict Virginian
+sense of the term. That is to say he was of a good family, was well
+educated, and had never done anything to disgrace himself; wherefore he
+was received in all gentlemen's houses as an equal. He drank a little
+too freely on occasion, and played bluff and loo a trifle too often, the
+elderly people thought; but these things, it was commonly supposed, were
+only youthful follies. He would grow out of them&mdash;marry and settle down
+after awhile. He was on the whole a very agreeable person to be with,
+and very much of a gentleman in his manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Foggy" Raves was an anomaly. His precise position in the social scale
+was a very difficult thing to discover, and is still more difficult to
+define. His father had been an overseer, and so "Foggy" was certainly
+not a "gentleman." Other men of parentage similar to his knew their
+places, and when business made it necessary for them to visit the house
+of a gentleman they expected to be received in the porch if the weather
+were tolerable, and in the dining-room if it were not. They never
+dreamed of being taken into the parlor, introduced to the family, or
+invited to dinner. All these things were well recognized customs; the
+line of demarkation between "gentlemen" and "common people" was very
+sharply drawn indeed. The two classes lived on excellent terms with each
+other, but they never mixed. The gentleman was always courteous to the
+common people out of respect for himself; while the common people were
+very deferential to every gentleman as a matter of duty. Now this man
+Raves was not a "gentleman." That much was clear. And yet, for some
+inscrutable reason, his position among the people who knew him was not
+exactly that of a common man. He was never invited into gentlemen's
+houses precisely as a gentleman would have been, it is true; and yet
+into gentlemen's houses he very often went, and that upon invitation
+too. When young men happened to be keeping bachelors' establishments,
+either temporarily or permanently, "Foggy" was sure to be invited pretty
+frequently to see them. As long as there were no ladies at home "Foggy"
+knew himself welcome, and he had played whist and loo and bluff in many
+genteel parlors, into which he never thought of going when there were
+ladies on the plantation. He kept a fine pack of hounds too, and was
+clearly at the head of the "fox-hunting interest" of the county; and
+this was an anomaly also, as fox-hunting is an eminently aristocratic
+sport, in which gentlemen engage only in company with gentlemen&mdash;except
+in "Foggy's" case.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus3" id="illus3"></a>
+<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"FOGGY."</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>Precisely what "Foggy's" business was it is difficult to say. He was
+constable, for one thing, and <i>ex-officio</i> county jailor. One half the
+jail building was fitted up as his residence, and there he lived, a
+bachelor some fifty years old. He hired out horses and buggies in a
+small way now and then, but his earnings were principally made at
+"bluff" and "loo." Once or twice Colonel Barksdale and some other
+gentlemen had tried to oust "Foggy" from the jail, believing that his
+establishment there was ruining a good many of the young men, as it
+certainly was. Failing in this they had him indicted for gambling in a
+public place, but the prosecution failed, the court holding that the
+jailor's private rooms in the jail could not be called a public place,
+though all rooms in a hotel had been held public within the meaning of
+the statute.</p>
+
+<p>This man's Christian name was not "Foggy," of course, though hardly
+anybody knew what it really was. He had won his sobriquet in early life
+by paying the professional gambler, Daniel K. Foggy, to teach him "how
+to beat roulette," and then winning his money back by putting his
+purchased knowledge to the proof at Daniel's own roulette table.
+Everybody agreed that "Foggy" was a good fellow. He would go far out of
+his way to oblige anybody, and, as was pretty generally agreed, had a
+good many of the instincts of a gentleman. He was not a professional
+gambler at all. He never kept a faro bank. He played cards merely for
+amusement, he said, and there was a popular tendency to believe his
+statement. The betting was simply to "make it interesting," and
+sometimes the play did grow very "interesting" indeed&mdash;interesting to
+the extent of several hundred dollars frequently.</p>
+
+<p>Now only about a week before the morning on which Mr. Robert met Dr.
+Harrison, he had gone to the Court House for the purpose of calling upon
+the doctor. While there young Harrison had proposed that they go up to
+Foggy's, explaining that Foggy was "quite a character, whom you ought to
+know; not a gentleman, of course, but a good fellow as ever lived."</p>
+
+<p>Upon going to Foggy's, Robert had found his cousin Ewing Pagebrook there
+playing cards. The boy&mdash;for he was not yet of age&mdash;was flushed and
+excited, and Robert saw at a glance that he had been losing heavily. On
+Robert's entrance he threw down his cards and declared himself tired of
+play.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll arrange that, Foggy," said the boy, with a nod.</p>
+
+<p>"O any time will do!" replied the other. "How d'ye do, Charley? Come
+in."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Charley introduced Robert, and the latter, barely recognizing
+Foggy's greeting, turned to Ewing and asked:</p>
+
+<p>"What have you been doing, Ewing? Not gambling, I hope."</p>
+
+<p>"O no! certainly not," said Foggy; "only a little game of draw-poker,
+ten cents ante."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but how much have you lost, Ewing?" asked Robert. "How much more
+than you can pay in cash, I mean? I see you haven't settled the score."</p>
+
+<p>Ewing was inclined to resent his cousin's questioning, but his rather
+weak head was by no means a match for his cousin's strong one. This
+great hulking Robert Pagebrook was "big all over," Billy Barksdale had
+said. His will was law to most men when he chose to assert it strongly.
+He now took his cousin in hand, and made him confess to a debt of fifty
+dollars to the gambler. Then turning to Foggy he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Raves, you have won all of this young man's money and fifty dollars
+more, it appears. Now, as I understand the matter, this fifty dollars is
+'a debt of honor,' in gambling parlance, and so it must be paid. But you
+must acknowledge that you are more than a match for a mere boy, and you
+ought to 'give him odds.' I believe that is the correct phrase, is it
+not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's right; but how can you give odds in draw-poker?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to show you, though I am certainly not acquainted with the
+mysteries of that game. You and he think he owes you fifty dollars. Now
+my opinion is that he owes you nothing, while you owe him the precise
+amount of cash you have won from him; and I propose to effect a
+compromise. The law of Virginia is pretty stringent, I believe, on the
+subject of gambling with people under age, and if I were disposed I
+could give you some trouble on that score. But I propose instead to pay
+you ten dollars&mdash;just enough to make a receipt worth while&mdash;and to take
+your receipt in full for the amount due. I shall then take my cousin
+home, and he can pay me at his leisure. Is that satisfactory, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Robert was in a towering rage, though his manner was as quiet as it
+is possible to conceive, and his voice was as soft and smooth as a
+woman's. Had Foggy been disposed to presume upon his antagonist's
+apparent calmness and to play the bully, he would unquestionably have
+got himself into trouble of a physical sort there and then. To speak
+plainly, Robert Pagebrook was quite prepared to punish the gambler with
+his fists, and would undoubtedly have made short work of it had Foggy
+provoked him with a word. But Foggy never quarreled. He knew his
+business too well for that. He never gave himself airs with gentlemen.
+He knew his place too well. He never got himself involved in any kind of
+disturbance which would attract attention to himself. He knew the
+consequences too well. He was always quiet, always deferential, always
+satisfied; and so, while he had no reason to anticipate the thrashing
+which Robert Pagebrook was aching to give him, he nevertheless was as
+complacent as possible in his reply to that gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"Why certainly, Mr. Pagebrook. I never meant to take the money at all. I
+only wanted to frighten our young friend here, and teach him a lesson.
+He thinks he can play cards when he can't, and I wanted to 'break him of
+sucking eggs,' that's all. I meant to let him think he had to pay me so
+as to scare him, for I feel an interest in Ewing. 'Pon my word I do. Now
+let me tell you, Ewing, we'll call this square, and you mustn't play no
+more. You play honest now, but if you keep on you'll cheat a little
+after awhile, and when a man cheats at cards, Ewing, he'll steal. Mind,
+I speak from experience, for I've seen a good deal of this thing. Come,
+Charley, you and Mr. Pagebrook, let's take something. I've got some
+splendid Shield's whisky."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pagebrook summoned sufficient courtesy to decline the alcoholic
+hospitality without rudeness, and, with his cousin, took his leave.</p>
+
+<p>Ewing entreated Robert to keep the secret he had thus stumbled upon, and
+Robert promised to do so upon the express condition that Ewing would
+wholly refrain from playing cards for money in future. This the youth
+promised to do, and our friend Robert congratulated himself upon his
+success in saving his well-meaning but rather weak-headed cousin from
+certain ruin.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook Rides.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>In view of the circumstances detailed in the preceding chapter, it was
+quite natural that Robert Pagebrook should feel some annoyance when he
+learned from young Harrison that his cousin had again fallen into the
+hands of Foggy Raves. And he did feel annoyance, and a good deal of it,
+as he resumed his walk toward The Oaks. Aside from his interest in his
+cousin, Robert disliked to be beaten at anything, and to find that the
+gambler had fairly beaten him in his fight for the salvation of Ewing
+was anything but agreeable to him. Then again his cousin had shown
+himself miserably weak of moral purpose, and weaknesses were always
+unpleasant things for Robert Pagebrook to contemplate. He had no
+sympathy with irresolution of any sort, and no patience with unstable
+moral knees. He was half angry and wholly grieved, therefore, when he
+heard of Ewing's violation of his promise. His first impulse was to go
+before the next grand jury and secure Foggy's indictment for gambling
+with a minor, but a maturer reflection convinced him that while this
+would be an agreeable thing to do under the circumstances, it would be
+an unwise one as well. To expose Ewing was to ruin him hopelessly,
+Robert felt, knowing as he did that reformation in the face of public
+disgrace requires a good deal more of moral stamina than Ewing Pagebrook
+ever had. Precisely what to do Robert did not know. He would talk with
+Cousin Sudie about the matter, and see what she thought was best. Her
+judgment, he had discovered, was particularly good, and it might help
+him to a determination.</p>
+
+<p>This thinking of Cousin Sudie brought back to his mind Phil's hint as to
+the purpose of Dr. Harrison's visit, and his face burned as the
+conviction came to him that this man might be Cousin Sudie's accepted or
+acceptable lover. He knew well enough that Harrison called frequently at
+Shirley; but surely Cousin Sudie would have mentioned the man often in
+conversation if he had been largely in her mind. Would she though? This
+was a second thought. Was not her silence, on the contrary, rather an
+indication that she did think of the man? If she recognized him as a
+lover, would she not certainly avoid all unnecessary mention of his
+name? Was not Phil likely to be pretty well informed in the case? All
+these things ran rapidly through his perturbed mind. But why should he
+worry himself over a matter that in no way concerned him? <i>He</i> was not
+interested in Cousin Sudie except as a friend. Of course not. Was not
+his heart still sore from its suffering at the hands of Miss Nellie
+Currier? No; upon the whole he was forced to confess that it was not. In
+truth he had not thought of that young lady for at least a fortnight;
+and now that he did think of her he could not possibly understand how
+or why he had ever cared for her at all. But he was not in love with
+Cousin Sudie. Of that he was certain. And yet he could not avoid a
+feeling of very decided annoyance at the thought suggested by Phil's
+remark. He knew young Harrison very slightly, but he was accustomed to
+take men's measures pretty promptly, and he was not at all satisfied
+with this one as a suitor for Cousin Sudie. He knew that Foggy was the
+young physician's pretty constant associate. He knew that Harrison drank
+at times to excess, and he felt that he was not over scrupulous upon
+nice points of morality. In short, our young man was in a fair way to
+work himself into a very pretty indignation when he met Maj. Pagebrook's
+overseer, Winger. A negotiation immediately ensued, ending in an
+agreement that Robert should ride the black colt so long as Graybeard's
+lameness should continue, paying Winger a moderate hire for the animal.</p>
+
+<p>The bargain concluded, Winger dismounted and Robert took his place on
+the colt's back, borrowing Winger's saddle until his return to Shirley
+in the evening.</p>
+
+<p>Horseback exercise is a curious thing, certainly, in some of its
+effects. When Robert was afoot that morning several things had combined,
+as we have seen, to make him gloomy, despondent, and generally out of
+sorts. Ewing's backsliding had annoyed him, and the possibility or
+probability of Phil's accuracy of information and judgment in the matter
+of Cousin Sudie and Dr. Harrison had depressed him sorely. When he found
+himself on the back of this magnificent colt, whose delight it was to
+carry a strong, fearless rider, he fell immediately into hearty sympathy
+with the high spirits and bounding pulses of the animal. He struck out
+into a gallop, and in an instant felt himself in a far brighter world
+than that which he had been traversing ten minutes since. His spirits
+rose. His hopefulness returned. The world became better and the future
+more promising. Mr. Robert Pagebrook felt the unreasonable but
+thoroughly delightful exhilaration to which Billy Barksdale referred
+when he said, "Bob is the happiest fellow in the world; he gets glad
+sometimes just because he is alive." That was precisely the state of
+affairs. Mr. Robert on this high-mettled horse was superlatively alive,
+and was glad because of it. There is more of joy than many people know
+in the mere act of living; but it is only they who have clear
+consciences, springy muscles, and perfect health of both mind and body
+who fully share this joy. Robert Pagebrook had all of these, and was
+astride a perfect horse to boot; and that, as all horsemen know, is an
+important element in the matter.</p>
+
+<p>He galloped on toward The Oaks, leaving his troubles just where he
+mounted his horse. He forgot Ewing's apostasy; he forgot Dr. Harrison,
+but he remembered Cousin Sudie, and that right pleasantly too. Naturally
+enough, being on horseback, he projected himself into the future, which
+is always a bright world when one is galloping toward it. He would
+heartily enjoy the coming fox-chase&mdash;particularly on such an animal as
+that now under him. Then his thoughts pushed themselves still further
+forward, and he dreamed dreams. His full professorship would pay him a
+salary sufficient to justify him in setting up a little establishment of
+his own, and he should then know what it was to have a home in which
+there should be love and purity and peace and domestic comfort. The
+woman who was to form the center of all this bliss was vaguely undefined
+as to identity and other details. She existed only in outline, in the
+picture, but that outline strikingly resembled the young woman who
+carried the key-basket at Shirley&mdash;an accidental resemblance, of course,
+for Mr. Robert Pagebrook was positive that he was not in love with
+Cousin Sudie.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook Dines with his Cousin Sarah Ann.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>How largely Mr. Robert's high spirits were the result of rapid riding on
+a good horse, and how far other causes aided in producing them, I am
+wholly unprepared to say. Whatever their cause was they were not
+destined to last long after he dismounted at The Oaks. Indeed his day at
+that country seat was not at all an agreeable one. His cousin Sarah Ann
+was a rather depressing person to be with at any time, and there were
+circumstances which made her especially so on this particular occasion.
+Cousin Sarah Ann had a chronic habit of being ostentatiously sorry for
+herself, which was very disagreeable to a healthy young man like Robert.
+She nursed and cherished her griefs as if they had been her children,
+and like children they grew under the process. She had several times
+told Robert how lonely she was since the death of her mother, three
+years before, and with tears in her eyes she had complained that there
+was nobody to love her now that poor mother was gone&mdash;a statement which
+right-thinking and logical Robert felt himself almost guilty in hearing
+from a woman with a husband and a house full of children. She
+complained a good deal of her poverty, too, a complaining which shocked
+this truthful young man, knowing, as he did, that his cousin Edwin was
+one of the wealthiest men in the country round about, with a good
+plantation at home, a very large and profitable one in Mississippi,
+twenty or thirty business buildings, well leased, in Richmond, a surplus
+of money in bank, and no debts whatever, which last circumstance served
+to make him almost a curiosity in a state in which it was hardly
+respectable to owe no money. She complained, too, that her boys were
+dull and her girls not pretty, both of which complaints were very well
+founded indeed. When Robert on his first visit said something in praise
+of her comfortable and really pretty house, she replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I can't pretend to live in an aristocratic house like your Aunt
+Mary's. I didn't inherit a 'family mansion' you know, and so we had to
+build this house. It hasn't a bit of wainscoting, you see, and no old
+pictures. I reckon I a'n't as good as you Pagebrooks, and somehow my
+husband a'n't as aristocratic as the rest of you. I reckon he's only a
+half-blood Pagebrook, and that's why he condescended to marry poor me."</p>
+
+<p>This was Cousin Sarah Ann's favorite way of speaking of herself, and she
+said "poor me" with a degree of pathos in her tone which always brought
+tears to her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>On the present occasion, as I have said, there were circumstances which
+enabled this estimable lady to make herself unusually disagreeable. She
+had a fresh affliction, and so she reveled in an ecstasy of woe. It was
+her ambition in life to be exceptionally miserable, and accordingly she
+welcomed sorrow with a keenness of relish which few people can possibly
+know. She wouldn't be happy in heaven, Billy Barksdale said, unless she
+could convince people there that she was snubbed by the saints and put
+upon by the angels.</p>
+
+<p>When Robert arrived at The Oaks that morning Major Pagebrook met him at
+the gate, according to custom, but without his customary cheerfulness of
+countenance. He offered no explanation, however, and Robert asked no
+questions. The two went into the parlor, Robert catching sight of Ewing
+in the orchard back of the house, but having no opportunity to speak to
+the young man.</p>
+
+<p>Robert had not been in the parlor many minutes before Major Pagebrook
+went out and Cousin Sarah Ann entered and greeted him with her
+handkerchief to her eyes. She made one or two ostentatious efforts to
+control herself, and then ostentatiously burst into tears.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus4" id="illus4"></a>
+<img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>COUSIN SARAH ANN.</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>"Oh! Cousin Robert, I didn't mean to betray myself this way. But I'm so
+miserable. Ewing has been led away again by that man, Foggy Raves."</p>
+
+<p>"I am heartily sorry to know it, Cousin Sarah Ann," replied Robert. "Did
+he lose much?"</p>
+
+<p>"O Ewing never gambles! I don't mean that. Thank heaven my boy never
+plays cards, except with small stakes for amusement. But he went over to
+the Court House last night to stay with Charley Harrison, and they went
+up to Foggy's and they drank a little too much. And now Cousin Edwin
+(Mrs. Pagebrook always called her husband Cousin Edwin) is terribly
+angry about it and has scolded the poor boy cruelly, cruelly. He even
+threatened to cut him off with nothing at all in his will, and leave the
+poor boy to starve. Men are so hard-hearted! The idea that I should live
+to hear my boy talked to in that way, and by his own father too, almost
+kills me. Poor me! there's nobody to love me now."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, Cousin Sarah Ann," said Robert, "for I am deeply concerned in
+Ewing's behalf, and I mean to reform him if I can&mdash;does he often get
+drunk?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get drunk! My boy never gets drunk! You talk just like Cousin Edwin. He
+only drinks a little, as all young gentlemen do, and if he drinks too
+much now and then I'm sure it isn't so very dreadful as you all make it
+out. I don't see why the poor boy must be kept down all the time and
+scolded and scolded and talked about, just because he does like other
+people; and that's what distresses me. Cousin Edwin scolds Ewing, and
+then scolds me for taking the poor boy's part, and it's more than I can
+bear. And now you talk about 'reforming' him!"</p>
+
+<p>Robert explained that he had misunderstood the cause of Cousin Sarah
+Ann's grief, but he thought it would be something worse than useless to
+tell her that she was ruining the boy, as he saw clearly enough that she
+was. He turned the conversation, therefore, and Cousin Sarah Ann
+speedily dried her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You're riding Mr. Winger's horse, I see. What's become of Graybeard?"
+she asked, after a little time.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a little lame just now. Nothing serious, but I thought I would
+hire Winger's colt until he gets well."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I understand. The rides soon in the morning must not be given up
+on any terms. But you'd better look out, Cousin Robert. I'm sorry for
+you if you lose your heart there."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Cousin Sarah Ann, what do you mean? I really am not sure that I
+understand you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I say nothing; but those rides every morning and all that
+housekeeping that I've heard about, are dangerous things, cousin. I was
+a belle once myself."</p>
+
+<p>It was one of Cousin Sarah Ann's favorite theories that she knew all
+about bellehood, having been a belle herself&mdash;though nobody else ever
+knew anything about that particular part of her career.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Cousin Sarah Ann, I do not think I have lost my heart, as you
+phrase it; but pray tell me why you should be sorry for me if I had?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Robert was at first about to declare positively that he had not
+fallen in love with Cousin Sudie, but just at that moment it occurred to
+him that he might possibly be mistaken about the matter, and being
+thoroughly truthful he chose the less positive form of denial,
+supplementing it, as we have seen, with a question.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, for several reasons," replied Cousin Sarah Ann: "they do say that
+Charley Harrison is before you there, and anyhow, it would never do.
+Sudie hasn't got much, you know. Her father didn't leave her anything
+but a few hundred dollars, and that's all spent long ago, on her clothes
+and schooling."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Robert Pagebrook certainly did not wish ill to Cousin Sudie, and yet
+he was heartily though illogically glad when he learned that that young
+lady was poor. The feeling surprised him, but he had no time in which
+to analyze it just then.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Cousin Sarah Ann, you certainly do not think me so mercenary as
+your remark would seem to indicate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! it's well enough to talk about not being mercenary, but I can tell
+you that some money on one side or the other is very convenient. I know
+by experience what it is to be poor. I might have married rich if I'd
+wanted to, but I had lofty notions like you."</p>
+
+<p>The reader will please remember that I am no more responsible for Mrs.
+Pagebrook's syntax than for her sins.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Cousin Sarah Ann," said Robert, "you would not wish one to marry a
+young woman's money or lands, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's only your romantic way of putting it. I don't see why you can't
+love a rich girl as well as a poor one, for my part. If you had plenty
+of money yourself it wouldn't matter; but as it is you ought to marry so
+as to hang up your hat."</p>
+
+<p>"I confess I do not exactly understand your figure of speech, Cousin
+Sarah Ann! What do you mean by hanging up my hat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you ever hear that before? It's a common saying here, when a man
+marries a girl with a good plantation and a 'dead daddy,' so there can't
+be any doubt about the land being her's&mdash;they say he's got nothing to do
+but walk in and hang up his hat."</p>
+
+<p>This explanation was lucid enough without doubt, but it, and indeed the
+entire conversation, was extremely disagreeable to Robert, who was
+sufficiently old-fashioned to think that marriage was a holy thing, and
+he, being a man of good taste, disliked to hear holy things lightly
+spoken of. He was relieved, therefore, by Maj. Pagebrook's entrance, and
+not long afterwards he was invited to go up to the blue-room, the way to
+which he knew perfectly well, to rest awhile before dinner.</p>
+
+<p>In the blue-room he found Ewing, with a headache, lying on a lounge. The
+youth had purposely gone thither, probably, in order that his meeting
+with Robert might be a private one, for meet him he must, as he very
+well knew, at dinner if not before.</p>
+
+<p>Robert sat down by him and held his head as tenderly as a woman could
+have done, and speaking gently said:</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sorry to find you suffering, Ewing. You must ride with me
+after dinner, and the air will relieve your head, I hope."</p>
+
+<p>The boy actually burst into tears, and presently, recovering from the
+paroxysm, said:</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't expect that, Cousin Robert. Those are the first kind words
+I've heard to-day. Mother has called me hard names all the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Your <i>mother</i>!" exclaimed Robert, thrown off his guard by surprise, for
+he would never have thought of questioning the boy on such a subject.</p>
+
+<p>"O yes! she always does. If she'd ever give me any credit when I do try
+to do right, I reckon I would try harder. But she calls me a drunkard
+and gambler whenever there is the least excuse for it; and if I don't do
+anything wrong she says I am pokey and a'n't got any spirit. She told me
+this morning she didn't mean to leave me anything in her will, because
+I'd squander it. You know all pa's property is in her name now. I got
+mad at last and told her I knew she couldn't keep me from getting my
+share, because nearly half of everything here belonged to Grandfather
+Taylor and is willed to us children when we come of age. She didn't know
+I knew that, and when I told her&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Ewing, don't talk about that. You have no right to tell me such
+things. Bathe your head now, and hold it up as a man should. You are
+responsible to yourself for yourself, and it is your duty to make a man
+of yourself&mdash;such a man as you need not be ashamed of. If you think you
+do not receive the recognition you ought for your efforts to do well,
+you should remember that things are not perfectly adjusted in this
+world, so far at least as we can understand them. The reward of
+manliness is the manliness itself; and it is well worth living for too,
+even though nobody recognizes its existence but yourself. Of that,
+however, there need be no fear. People will know you, sooner or later,
+precisely as you are."</p>
+
+<p>Robert had other encouraging things to say to the youth, and finally
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Ewing, I shall ask you to make no promises which you may not be
+strong enough to keep; but if you will promise me to make an earnest
+effort to let whisky and cards alone, and to make a man of yourself,
+refusing to be led by other people, I will talk with your father and get
+him to agree never to mention the past again, but to aid you with every
+encouragement in his power for the future."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Cousin Robert, pa never says anything to me. When ma scolds he
+just goes out of the house, and he don't come in again till he's obliged
+to. It a'n't pa at all, it's ma, and it a'n't any use to talk to her.
+I'll be of age pretty soon, and then I mean to take my share of
+grandpa's estate, and put it into money and go clear away from here."</p>
+
+<p>Robert saw that it would be idle to remonstrate with the young man at
+present, and equally idle to interfere with the domestic governmental
+system practiced by Cousin Sarah Ann. He devoted himself, therefore, to
+the task of getting Ewing to bathe his head; and after a little time the
+two went down to dinner, Ewing thinking Robert the only real friend he
+could claim.</p>
+
+<p>His head aching worse after dinner than before, he declined Robert's
+invitation to go to Shirley, and our friend rode back alone.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Concerning the Rivulets of Blue Blood.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Robert was heartily glad to get away from the uncomfortable presence
+of Cousin Sarah Ann, and yet it can not be said that our young gentleman
+was buoyant of spirit as he rode from The Oaks to Shirley. Ewing's case
+had depressed him, and Cousin Sarah Ann had depressed him still further.
+His confidence in woman nature was shaken. His ideas on the subject of
+women had been for the most part evolved&mdash;wrought out, <i>a priori</i>, from
+his mother as a premise. He had known all the time that not every woman
+was his mother's equal, if indeed any woman was; he had observed that
+sometimes vanity and weakness and in one case, as we know, faithlessness
+entered into the composition of women, but he had never conceived of
+such a compound of "envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness"
+as his cousin Sarah Ann certainly was; and as he applied the quotation
+mentally he was constrained also to utter the petition which accompanies
+it in the litany&mdash;"Good Lord deliver us!" This woman was a mystery to
+him. She not only shocked but she puzzled him. How anybody could
+consent to be just such a person as she was was wholly incomprehensible.
+Her departures from the right line of true womanhood were so entirely
+purposeless that he could trace them to no logical starting-point. He
+could conceive of no possible training or experience which ought to
+result in such a character as hers.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus5" id="illus5"></a>
+<img src="images/illus5.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>THE RIVULETS OF BLUE BLOOD.</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>After puzzling himself over this human problem for half an hour he gave
+it up, and straightway began to work at another. He asked himself how it
+could be possible that Cousin Sudie should be attracted by Dr. Charley
+Harrison. Possibly the reader has had occasion to work at a similar
+problem in his time, and if so I need not tell him how incapable it
+proved of solution. Of the fact Robert was now convinced, and the fact
+annoyed him. It annoyed him too that he could not account for the fact;
+and then it annoyed him still more to know that he could be annoyed at
+all in the case, for he was perfectly sure&mdash;or nearly so&mdash;that he was
+not himself in love with his little friend at Shirley. And yet he felt a
+strange yearning to battle in some way with young Harrison, and to
+conquer him. He wanted to beat the man at something, it mattered little
+what, and to triumph over him. But he did not allow himself even
+mentally to formulate this feeling. If he had he would have discovered
+its injustice, and cast it from him as unworthy. His instinct warned him
+of this, and so he refused to put his wish into form lest he should
+thereby lose the opportunity of entertaining it.</p>
+
+<p>With thoughts like these the young man rode homewards, and naturally
+enough he was not in the best of humors when he sat down in the parlor
+at Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation, in some inscrutable way, turned upon Cousin Sarah Ann,
+and Robert so far forgot himself as to express pleasure in the thought
+that that lady was in no way akin to himself.</p>
+
+<p>"But she is kin to you, Robert," said Aunt Catherine.</p>
+
+<p>"How can that be, Aunt Catherine?" asked the young gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"Show him with the keys, Aunt Catherine, show him with the keys," said
+Billy, who had returned from court that day. "Come, Sudie, where's your
+basket? I want to see if Aunt Catherine can't muddle Bob's head as badly
+as she does mine sometimes. Here are the keys. Explain it to him, Aunt
+Catherine, and if he knows when you get through whether he is his great
+grandfather's nephew or his uncle's son once removed, I'll buy his skull
+for tissue paper at once. A skull that can let key-basket genealogy
+through it a'n't thick enough to grow hair on."</p>
+
+<p>The task was one that the old lady loved, and so without paying the
+slightest attention to Billy's bantering she began at once to arrange
+the keys from Sudie's basket upon the floor in the shape of a
+complicated genealogical table. "Now my child," said she, pointing to
+the great key at top, "the smoke-house key is your great great
+grandmother, who was a Pembroke. The Pembrokes were always
+considered&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Always considered smoke-house keys&mdash;remember, Bob."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you keep still, William? The Pembrokes were always considered an
+excellent family. Now your great great grandmother, Matilda Pembroke,
+married John Pemberton, and had two sons and one daughter, as you see.
+The oldest son, Charles, had six daughters, and his third daughter
+married your grandfather Pagebrook, so she was your grandmother&mdash;the
+store-room key, you see&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"See, Bob, what it is to be well connected," said Billy; "your own dear
+grandmother was a store-room key."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, Billy, you confuse Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! do I? I only wanted him to remember who his grandmother was."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the old lady, "Matilda Pemberton's daughter, your great
+grand aunt, married a man of no family&mdash;a carpenter or something&mdash;the
+corn-house key there."</p>
+
+<p>"There it is, Bob. A'n't you glad you descended from a respectable
+smoke-house key, through an aristocratic store-room key, instead of
+having a plebeian corn-house key in the way? There's nothing like blue
+blood, I tell you, and ours is as blue as an indigo bag; a'n't it, Aunt
+Catherine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you never learn, Billy, not to make fun of your ancestors? I have
+explained to you a hundred times how much there is in family. Now don't
+interrupt me again. Let me see, where was I? O yes! Your great grand
+aunt married a carpenter, and his daughter Sarah was your second cousin
+if you count removes, fourth cousin if you don't. Now Sarah was your
+Cousin Sarah Ann's grandmother, as you see; so Sarah Ann is your third
+cousin if you count removes, and your sixth cousin if you don't. Do you
+understand it now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he does," said Billy; "but I must break up the family now, as
+I see Polidore's waiting for the madam's great grandfather, to wit, the
+corn-house key. Come Bob, let's go up to the stable and see the horses
+fed."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook Manages to be in at the Death.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Not many days after Robert's uncomfortable dinner at The Oaks, a servant
+came over with a message from Major Pagebrook, to the effect that a
+grand fox-chase was arranged for the next morning. Foggy and Dr.
+Harrison had originated it, but Major Pagebrook's and several other
+gentlemen's hounds would run, and Ewing invited his cousins, Robert and
+Billy, to take part in the sport. Accordingly our two young gentlemen
+ate an early breakfast and rode over to that part of The Oaks plantation
+known as "Pine quarter," where the first fox-hunt of the season was
+always begun. They arrived not a moment too soon, and found the hounds
+just breaking away and the riders galloping after them. The first five
+miles of country was comparatively open, a fact which gave the fox a
+good start and promised to make the chase a long and a rapid one.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Pagebrook had never seen a fox-chase, and his only knowledge of
+the sport was that which he had gleaned from descriptions, but he was on
+a perfect horse as inexperienced as himself; he was naturally very
+fearless; he was intensely excited, and it was his habit to do whatever
+he believed to be the proper thing on any occasion. From books he had
+got the impression that the proper thing to do in fox-hunting was to
+ride as hard as he could straight after the hounds, and this he did with
+very little regard for consequences. He galloped straight through clumps
+of pine, "as thick," Billy said, "as the hair on Absalom's head," while
+others rode around them. He plunged through creek "low grounds" without
+a thought of possible mires or quicksands. He knew that fox-hunters made
+their horses jump fences, but he knew nothing of their practice in the
+matter of knocking off top rails first, and accordingly he rode straight
+at every fence which happened to stand in his way, and forced his horse
+to take them all at a flying leap.</p>
+
+<p>On and on he went, straight after the hounds, his pulse beating high and
+his brain whirling with excitement. The more judicious hunters of the
+party would have been left far behind but for the advantage they
+possessed in their knowledge of the country and their consequent ability
+to anticipate the fox's turnings, and to save distance and avoid
+difficulties by following short cuts. Robert rode right after the hounds
+always.</p>
+
+<p>"That cousin of yours is crazy," said one gentleman to Billy; "but what
+a magnificent rider he is."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you stop your cousin?" asked another, "he'll kill himself, to
+a certainty, if you don't."</p>
+
+<p>"O I will!" replied Billy, "and I'll remonstrate with all the streaks of
+lightning I happen to overtake, too. I'm sure to catch a good many of
+them before I come up with him."</p>
+
+<p>The fox "doubled" very little now, and it became evident that he was
+making for the Appomattox River, but whether he would cross it or double
+and run back was uncertain. Billy earnestly hoped he would double, as
+that might enable him to see Robert and check his mad riding, if indeed
+that gentleman should manage to reach the river with an unbroken neck.</p>
+
+<p>On and on they went, fox running for dear life, hounds in perfect trim
+and full cry, and riders each bent upon "taking the tail" if possible.
+Robert remained in advance of all the rest, jumping every fence over
+which he could force his horse, and making the animal knock down those
+which he could not leap. His horse blundered at a ditch once and fell,
+but recovered himself with his rider still erect in the saddle, before
+anybody had time to wonder whether his neck was broken or not. Billy now
+saw a new danger ahead of his cousin. They were nearing the river, and
+the fox, an old red one, who knew his business, was evidently running
+for a crossing place where mire and quicksands abounded. Of this Robert
+knew nothing, and after his performances thus far there was no reason to
+hope that any late-coming caution would save him now. A thicket of young
+oaks lay just ahead, and the hounds going through it Robert followed
+quite as a matter of course. Billy saw here his chance, and putting
+spurs to his horse he rode at full speed around the end of the thicket,
+hoping to reach the other side in time to intercept his cousin, in whose
+behalf he was now really alarmed. As he swept by the end of the
+thicket, however, he passed two gentlemen whom he could not see through
+the bushes, but whose voices he knew very well. They were none other
+than Mr. Foggy Raves and Dr. Charles Harrison, and Billy heard what they
+were saying.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>must</i> take the tail, Charley, and not let that city snob get it.
+The fool rides like Death on the pale horse, and don't seem to know
+there ever was a fence too high to jump. He'd try to take the Blue Ridge
+at a flying leap if it got in his way. I'd rather kill a dozen horses
+than let him beat us. He put his finger into our little game with that
+saphead Ewing, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But my horse is thumped now, Foggy."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, take mine then. He's fresh. I sent him over last night to meet me
+here, and I just now changed. I've hurt my knee and can't ride. Take, my
+horse and ride him to death but what you beat that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>This was all that Billy had time to hear, but it was enough to change
+his entire purpose. He no longer thought of Robert's neck, but hurried
+on for the sole purpose of spurring his cousin up to new exertion. He
+reached the edge of the thicket just as Robert came out bare-headed,
+having lost his hat in the brush. His face was bleeding, too, from
+scratches and bruises received in the struggle through the oak thicket.
+The river was just ahead, but the fox doubled to the right instead of
+crossing.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Bob," said Billy, "you've got to take the tail to-day or die.
+Foggy and Charley Harrison have been setting up a game on you, and
+Charley has a fresh horse, borrowed from Foggy on purpose to beat you.
+But this double gives you a quarter start of him. Don't <i>run</i> your horse
+up hills, or you'll blow him out, and shy off from such thickets as
+that. You can ride round quicker than you can go through. <i>Don't break
+your</i> NECK, BUT TAKE THE TAIL ANYHOW."</p>
+
+<p>He fairly yelled the last words at Robert, who was already a hundred
+yards ahead of him and getting further off every second.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of his words on his cousin was not precisely what might have
+been expected. Before this Robert had been intensely excited and had
+enjoyed being so, but his excitement had been the result of his high
+spirits and his keen zest for the sport in which he was engaged. He had
+astonished everybody by the utter recklessness of his riding, but had
+not shared at all in their astonishment or known that his riding was
+reckless. He had ridden hard simply because he thought that the proper
+thing to do and because he enjoyed doing it. He rode now for victory.
+His features lost the look of wild enjoyment which they had worn, and
+settled themselves into a firm, hard expression of dogged determination.
+Here was his opportunity to do battle with young Harrison; and from
+Billy's manner, rather than from his words, he knew that the contest was
+not one of generous rivalry on Harrison's part. He felt that there was a
+contemptuous sneer somewhere back of Billy's words, and the thought
+nettled him sorely. But he did not lose his head in the excitement. On
+the contrary, he felt the necessity now for care and coolness, and
+accordingly he immediately took pains to become both cool and careful.
+He knew that Harrison had an advantage in knowing the country, and he
+resolved to share that advantage. To this end he brought his horse down
+to an easy canter and waited for Harrison to come up. He then kept his
+eye constantly on his rival and used him as a guide. When Harrison
+avoided a thicket he avoided it also. If Harrison left the track of the
+hounds for the sake of cutting off an angle, Robert kept by his side.
+This angered Harrison, who had counted confidently upon having an
+advantage in these matters, and under the influence of his anger he
+spurred his horse unnecessarily and soon took a good deal of his
+freshness out of him.</p>
+
+<p>The two rode on almost side by side for miles. The fox was beginning to
+show his fatigue, and it was evident that the chase would soon end. Both
+the foremost riders discovered this, and both put forth every possible
+exertion to win. Just ahead of them lay a very dense thicket through
+which ran a narrow bridle-path barely wide enough for one horse, as
+Robert knew, for the thicket lay on Shirley plantation, the fox having
+run back almost immediately over his own track. It was evident now that
+"the catch" would occur in the field just beyond this thicket, and it
+was equally evident that as the two could not possibly ride abreast
+along the bridle-path, the one who could first put his horse into it
+would almost certainly be first in at the death. They rode like madmen,
+but Robert's horse was greatly fatigued and Harrison shot ahead of him
+by a single length into the path. There was hardly a chance for Robert
+now, as it was impossible in any case for him to pass his rival in the
+thicket, and he could see that the dogs had already caught the fox in
+the field, less than a rod beyond its edge.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got you now, I reckon," shouted Harrison looking back, but at the
+moment his horse stumbled and fell. Robert could no more stop his own
+horse than he could have stopped a hurricane, and the animal fell
+heavily over Harrison, throwing Robert about ten feet beyond and almost
+among the dogs. Getting up he ran in among the bellowing hounds and,
+catching the fox in his hand, he held him up in full view of the other
+gentlemen, now riding into the field from different directions and
+cheering as lustily as possible.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Some very Unreasonable Conduct.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Quite naturally Robert was elated as he stood there bare-headed, and
+received the congratulations of his companions, who had now come up and
+gathered around him. Loudest among them was Foggy, who leaping from his
+horse cried out:</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, Mr. Pagebrook, I must shake your hand. I never saw prettier
+riding in my life, and I've seen some good riding too in my time. But
+where's your horse? Did you turn him loose when you jumped off?"</p>
+
+<p>This served to remind Robert of the animal and of Harrison too, and
+going hastily into the thicket he found the Doctor repairing his girth,
+which had been broken in the fall. The Doctor was not hurt, nor was his
+horse injured in any way, but the black colt which had carried Robert so
+gallantly lay dead upon the ground. An examination showed that in
+falling he had broken his neck.</p>
+
+<p>It was not far that our young friend had to walk to reach Shirley, but a
+weariness which he had not felt before crept over him as he walked. His
+head ached sorely, and as the excitement died away it was succeeded by
+a numbness of despondency, the like of which he had never known before.
+He had declined to "ride and tie" with Billy, thinking the task a small
+one to walk through by a woods path to the house, while Billy followed
+the main road. With his first feeling of despondency came bitter
+mortification at the thought that he had allowed so small a thing as a
+fox-chase to so excite him. The exertion had been well enough, but he
+felt that the object in view during the latter half of the chase,
+namely, the defeat of young Harrison, was one wholly unworthy of him,
+and the color came to his cheek as he thought of the energy he had
+wasted on so small an undertaking. Then he remembered the gallant animal
+sacrificed in the blind struggle for mere victory, and he could hardly
+force the tears back as the thought came to him in full force that the
+nostrils which had quivered with excitement so short a time since, would
+snuff the air no more forever. He felt guilty, almost of murder, and
+savagely rejoiced to know that the death of the horse would entail a
+pecuniary loss upon himself, which would in some sense avenge the wrong
+done to the noble brute.</p>
+
+<p>The numbness and weariness oppressed him so that he sat down at the root
+of a tree, and remained there in a state of half unconsciousness until
+Billy came from the house to look for him. Arrived at the house he went
+immediately to bed and into a fever which prostrated him for nearly a
+week, during which time he was not allowed to talk much; in point of
+fact he was not inclined to talk at all, except to Cousin Sudie, who
+moved quietly in and out of the room as occasion required and came to
+sit by his bedside frequently, after Billy and Col. Barksdale quitted
+home again to attend court in another of the adjoining counties, as they
+did as soon as Robert's physician pronounced him out of danger. At first
+Cousin Sudie was disposed to enforce the doctor's orders in regard to
+silence; but she soon discovered, quick-witted girl that she was, that
+<i>her</i> talking soothed and quieted the patient, and so she talked to him
+in a soft, quiet voice, securing, by violating the doctor's injunction,
+precisely the result which the injunction was intended to secure. As
+soon as the fever quitted him Robert began to recover very rapidly, but
+he was greatly troubled about the still unpaid-for horse.</p>
+
+<p>Now he knew perfectly well that Cousin Sudie had no money at command,
+and he ought to have known that it was a very unreasonable proceeding
+upon his part to consult her in the matter. But love laughs at logic as
+well as at locksmiths, and so our logical young man very illogically
+concluded that the best thing to do in the premises was to consult
+Cousin Sudie.</p>
+
+<p>"I am in trouble, Cousin Sudie," said he, as he sat with her in the
+parlor one evening, "about that horse. I know Mr. Winger is a poor man,
+and I ought to pay him at once, but the truth is I have hardly any money
+with me, and there is no bank nearer than Richmond at which to get a
+draft cashed."</p>
+
+<p>"You have money enough, then, somewhere?" asked Cousin Sudie.</p>
+
+<p>"O yes! I have money in bank in Philadelphia, but Winger has already
+sent me a note asking immediate payment, and telling me he is sorely
+pressed for money; and I dislike exceedingly to ask his forbearance even
+for a week, under the circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"Why can't you get Cousin Edwin to cash a check for you?" asked the
+business-like little woman; "he always has money, and will do it gladly,
+I know."</p>
+
+<p>"That had not occurred to me, but it is a good suggestion. If you will
+lend me your writing-desk I will write and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, there comes Cousin Edwin now, and Ewing too, to see you," said Miss
+Sudie, hearing their voices in the porch.</p>
+
+<p>The visitors came into the parlor, and after a little while Sudie
+withdrew, intent upon some household matter. Ewing followed her. Robert
+spoke frankly of his wish to pay Winger promptly, and asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Can you cash my check on Philadelphia for me, Cousin Edwin, for three
+hundred dollars? Don't think of doing it, pray, if it is not perfectly
+convenient."</p>
+
+<p>"O it isn't inconvenient at all," said Major Pagebrook. "I have more
+money at home than I like to keep there, and I can let you have the
+amount and send your check to the bank in Richmond and have it credited
+to me quite as well as not. In fact I'd rather do it than not, as it'll
+save expressage on money."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly Robert drew a check for three hundred dollars on his bankers
+in Philadelphia, making it payable to Major Pagebrook, and that
+gentleman undertook to pay the amount that evening to Winger. Shortly
+after this business matter had been settled, Ewing and Miss Sudie
+returned to the parlor and the callers took their departure.</p>
+
+<p>Robert and Sudie sat silent for some time watching the flicker of the
+fire, for the days were cool now and fires were necessary to in-door
+comfort. How long their silence might have continued but for an
+interruption, I do not know; but an interruption came in the breaking of
+the forestick, which had burned in two. A broken reverie may sometimes
+be resumed, but a pair of broken reveries never are. Had Mr. Robert been
+alone he would have rearranged the fire and then sat down to his
+thoughts again. As it was he rearranged the fire and then began to talk
+with Miss Sudie.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to get that business off my hands. It worried me," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"So am I," said his companion, "very glad indeed."</p>
+
+<p>There must have been something in her tone, as there was certainly
+nothing in her words, which led Mr. Pagebrook to think that this young
+lady's remark had an unexpressed meaning back of it. He therefore
+questioned her.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Cousin Sudie? had it been troubling you too?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but it would have done so, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not understand you. Surely you never doubted that I would pay for
+the horse, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No indeed, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it Cousin Sudie? tell me what there is in your mind. I shall
+feel hurt if you do not."</p>
+
+<p>"I ought not to tell you, but I must now, or you will imagine
+uncomfortable things. I know why Mr. Winger wrote you that note."</p>
+
+<p>"You know why? There was some reason then besides his need of money?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was not pressed for the money at all. That wasn't the reason."</p>
+
+<p>"You surprise me, Cousin Sudie. Pray tell me what you know, and how."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, promise me first that you won't get yourself into any trouble
+about it&mdash;no, I have no right to exact a blind promise&mdash;but do don't get
+into trouble. That detestable man, Foggy Raves, made Mr. Winger uneasy
+about the money. He told him you were 'hard up' and couldn't pay if you
+wanted to; and I'm glad you have paid him, and I'm glad you beat Charley
+Harrison in the fox-chase, too."</p>
+
+<p>With this utterly inconsequent conclusion, Cousin Sudie commenced
+rocking violently in her chair.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know all this, Cousin Sudie?" asked Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"Ewing told me this evening. I'd rather you'd have killed a dozen horses
+than to have had Charley Harrison beat you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Cousin Sudie?"</p>
+
+<p>"O he's at the bottom of all this. He always is. Foggy is his
+mouth-piece. And then he told Aunt Catherine, the day you went to The
+Oaks, that he 'meant to have some fun when he got you into a fox-hunt on
+Winger's colt.' He said you'd find out how much your handsome city
+riding-school style was worth when you got on a horse you were afraid
+of. I'm <i>so</i> glad you beat him!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus6" id="illus6"></a>
+<img src="images/illus6.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>MISS SUDIE DECLARES HERSELF "SO GLAD."</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>Now it would seem that Cousin Sudie's rejoicing must have been of a
+singular sort, as she very unreasonably burst into tears while in the
+very act of declaring herself glad.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Robert Pagebrook was wholly unused to the task of soothing a woman
+in tears. It was his habit, under all circumstances, to do the thing
+proper to be done, but of what the proper thing was for a man to do or
+say to a woman in tears without apparent cause, Mr. Robert Pagebrook had
+not the faintest conception, and so he very unreasonably proceeded to
+take her hand in his and to tell her that he loved her, a fact which he
+himself just then discovered for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>Before he could add a word to the blunt declaration, Dick thrust his
+black head into the door-way with the announcement, "Supper's ready,
+Miss Sudie."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>What Occurred Next Morning.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>The reader thinks, doubtless, that Master Dick's entrance at the precise
+time indicated in the last chapter was an unfortunate occurrence, and I
+presume Mr. Pagebrook was of a like opinion at the moment. But maturer
+reflection convinced him that the interruption was a peculiarly
+opportune one. He was a conscientious young man, and was particularly
+punctilious in matters of honor; wherefore, had he been allowed to
+complete the conversation thus unpremeditatedly begun, without an
+opportunity to deliberate upon the things to be said, he would almost
+certainly have suffered at the hands of his conscience in consequence.
+There were circumstances which made some explanations on his part
+necessary, and he knew perfectly well that these explanations would not
+have been properly made if Master Dick's interruption had not come to
+give him time for reflection.</p>
+
+<p>All this he thought as he drank his tea; for when supper was announced
+both he and Miss Sudie went into the dining-room precisely as if their
+talk in the parlor had been of no unusual character. This they did
+because they were creatures of habit, as you and I and all the rest of
+mankind are. They were in the habit of going to supper when it was
+ready, and it never entered the thought of either to act differently on
+this particular occasion. Miss Sudie, it is true, ran up to her room for
+a moment&mdash;to brush her hair I presume&mdash;before she entered the
+dining-room, but otherwise they both acted very much as they always did,
+except that Robert addressed almost the whole of his conversation during
+the meal to his Aunt Mary and Aunt Catherine, while Miss Sudie, sitting
+there behind the tea-tray, said nothing at all. After tea the older
+ladies sat with Robert and Sudie in the parlor, until the early bed-time
+prescribed for the convalescent young gentleman arrived.</p>
+
+<p>It thus happened that there was no opportunity for the resumption of the
+interesting conversation interrupted by Dick, until the middle of the
+forenoon next day. Miss Sudie, it seems, found it necessary to go into
+the garden to inspect some late horticultural operations, and Mr.
+Robert, quite accidentally, followed her. They discussed matters with
+Uncle Joe, the gardener, for a time, and then wandered off toward a
+summer-house, where it was pleasant to sit in the soft November
+sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation which followed was an interesting one, of course. Let
+us listen to it.</p>
+
+<p>"The vines are all killed by the frost," said Cousin Sudie.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; you have frosts here earlier than I thought," said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"O we always expect frost about the tenth of October; at least the
+gentlemen never feel safe if their tobacco isn't cut by that time. This
+year frost was late for us, but the nights are getting very cool now,
+a'n't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I found blankets very comfortable even before the tenth of
+October."</p>
+
+<p>"It's lucky then that you wa'n't staying with Aunt Polly Barksdale."</p>
+
+<p>"Why? and who is your Aunt Polly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Polly? Why she is Uncle Charles's widow. She is the model for the
+whole connection; and I've had her held up to me as a pattern ever since
+I can remember, but I never saw her till about a year ago, when she came
+and staid a week or two with us; and between ourselves I think she is
+the most disagreeably good person I ever saw. She is good, but somehow
+she makes me wicked, and I don't think I'm naturally so. I didn't read
+my Bible once while she staid, and I do love to read it. I suppose I
+shall like to have her with me in heaven, if I get there, because there
+I won't have anything for her to help me about, but here 'I'm better
+midout' her."</p>
+
+<p>"I quite understand your feeling; but you haven't told me why I'm lucky
+not to have her for my hostess these cold nights."</p>
+
+<p>"O you'd be comfortable enough now that tobacco is cut; but when Cousin
+Billy staid with her, a good many years ago, he used to complain of
+being cold&mdash;he was only a boy&mdash;and ask her for blankets, and she would
+hold up her hands and exclaim: 'Why, child, your uncle's tobacco isn't
+cut yet! It will never do to say it's cold enough for blankets when your
+poor uncle hasn't got his tobacco cut. Think of your uncle, child! he
+can't afford to have his tobacco all killed.' But come, Cousin Robert,
+you mustn't sit here; besides I want to show you an experiment I am
+trying with winter cabbage."</p>
+
+<p>This, I believe, is a faithful report of what passed between Robert and
+Sudie in the summer-house. I am very well aware that they ought to have
+talked of other things, but they did not; and, as a faithful chronicler,
+I can only state the facts as they occurred, begging the reader to
+remember that I am in no way responsible for the conduct of these young
+people.</p>
+
+<p>The cabbage experiment duly explained and admired, Mr. Robert and Miss
+Sudie walked out of the garden and into the house. There they found
+themselves alone again, and Robert plunged at once into the matter of
+which both had been thinking all the time.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Sudie," he said, "have you thought about what I said to you last
+night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;a little."</p>
+
+<p>"I will not ask you just yet <i>what</i> you have thought," said Robert,
+taking her unresisting hand into his, "because there are some
+explanations which I am in honor bound to make to you before asking you
+to give me an answer, one way or the other. When I told you I loved you,
+of course I meant to ask you to be my wife, but that I must not ask you
+until you know exactly what I am. I want you to know precisely what it
+is that I ask you to do. I am a poor man, as you know. I have a good
+position, however, with a salary of two thousand dollars a year, and
+that is more than sufficient for the support of a family, particularly
+in an inexpensive college town; so that there is room for a little
+constant accumulation. If I marry, I shall insure my life for ten
+thousand dollars, so that my death shall not leave my wife destitute. I
+have a very small reserve fund in bank too&mdash;thirteen hundred dollars
+now, since I paid for that horse. And there is still three hundred
+dollars due me for last year's work. These are my means and my
+prospects, and now I tell you again, Sudie, that I love you, and I ask
+you bluntly will you marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>The young lady said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"If you wish for time to think about it Sudie&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose that would be the proper way, according to custom; but,"
+raising her eyes fearlessly to his, "I have already made up my mind, and
+I do not want to act a falsehood. There is nothing to be ashamed of, I
+suppose, in frankly loving such a man as you, Robert. I will be your
+wife."</p>
+
+<p>The little woman felt wonderfully brave just then, and accordingly,
+without further ado, she commenced to cry.</p>
+
+<p>The reader would be very ill-mannered indeed should he listen further to
+a conversation which was wholly private and confidential in its
+character; wherefore let us close our ears and the chapter at once.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>In which Mr. Pagebrook Bids his Friends Good-by.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>The next two or three days passed away very quickly with Mr. Robert and
+Miss Sudie. Robert made to his aunt a statement of the results, without
+entering into the details of his conferences with Miss Sudie, and was
+assured of Col. Barksdale's approval when that gentleman and Billy
+should return from the court they were attending. The two young people,
+however, were in no hurry for the day appointed for that return to come.
+They were very happy as it was. They discussed their future, and laid
+many little plans to be carried out after awhile. It was arranged that
+Robert should return to Virginia at the beginning of the next long
+vacation; that the wedding should take place immediately upon his
+coming; and that the two should make a little trip through the mountains
+and, returning to Shirley, remain there until the autumn should bring
+Robert's professional duties around again.</p>
+
+<p>They were in the very act of talking these matters over for the
+twentieth time, one afternoon, when Maj. Pagebrook rode up. He seemed
+absent and nervous in manner, and after a few moments of general
+conversation asked to see Robert alone upon business. When the two were
+closeted together Maj. Pagebrook opened his pocket-book and taking out a
+paper he slowly unfolded it, saying: "I have just received this, Robert,
+and I suppose there is a duplicate of it awaiting you in the
+post-office."</p>
+
+<p>Robert looked at the paper in blank astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"What does this mean?" he cried; "my draft protested! Why I have sixteen
+hundred dollars in that bank, and my draft was for only three hundred."</p>
+
+<p>"It appears that the bank has failed," said Maj. Pagebrook. "At least I
+reckon that's what the Richmond people mean. They say, in a note to me,
+that it 'went to pot' a week ago. It seems there are a good many banks
+failing this fall. I hope you won't lose everything, though, Robert."</p>
+
+<p>The blow was a terrible one to the young man. In a moment he took in the
+entire situation. To lose the money he had in bank was to be forced to
+begin the world over again with absolutely nothing; but at any rate he
+could pay the debt he owed to his cousin very shortly, and to be free
+from debt is in itself a luxury to a man of his temperament. He thought
+but a moment and then said:</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Edwin, I shall have to ask you to carry that protested draft for
+me a few days if you will. There is some money due me on the fifteenth
+of this month, and it is now the ninth. I asked that it should be sent
+to me here, but I shall go to Philadelphia at once, and I'll collect it
+when I get there and send you the amount. I promise you faithfully that
+it shall be remitted by the fifteenth at the very furthest."</p>
+
+<p>"O don't trouble yourself to be so exact, Robert," replied Maj.
+Pagebrook. "Send it when you can; I'm in no very great hurry. Sarah Ann
+says we must invest all our spare money in the new railroad stock; but I
+needn't pay anything on that till the twenty-third, so there will be
+time enough. But for that I wouldn't care how long I waited."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not let it remain unpaid after the fifteenth at furthest," said
+Robert. "I do not like to let it lie even that long."</p>
+
+<p>Maj. Pagebrook took his departure and Robert told Sudie of the bad news,
+telling her also that he must leave next morning for Philadelphia, to
+see if it were possible to save something from the wreck of the bank.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," said he, "I must get to work. There are nearly two months of
+time between now and the first of January, and I cannot afford to lose
+it now that I have lost this money."</p>
+
+<p>"What will you do, Robert? You can't do anything teaching in that time."</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I can do a good many things. I write a little now and then for
+the papers and magazines, for one thing. I can pick up something, I
+think, which will at least pay expenses."</p>
+
+<p>He then told her of his arrangement with Maj. Pagebrook about the
+protested draft, and finished by repeating what that gentleman had said
+about the investment in railroad stock.</p>
+
+<p>This troubled Miss Sudie more than all the rest, and Robert seeing it
+pressed her for a reason. But no reason would she give, and Robert was
+forced to content himself with the thought that his trouble naturally
+brought trouble to her. To her aunt, however, she expressed her
+conviction that Cousin Sarah Ann had suggested the railroad investment
+merely for the sake of compelling her husband to press Robert for
+payment. She was troubled to know that the payment must be deferred even
+for a few days, but rejoiced in the knowledge of Robert's ability to
+discharge his indebtedness speedily. It galled her to think of the
+unpleasant things which the amiable mistress of The Oaks would manage to
+say about Robert pending the payment. There was no help for it, however,
+and so the brave little woman persuaded herself that it was her duty to
+appear cheerful in order that Robert might be so; and whatever Miss
+Sudie believed to be her duty in any case Miss Sudie did, however
+difficult the doing might be. She accordingly wore the pleasantest
+possible smile and the most cheerful of countenances whenever Robert was
+present, doing every particle of her necessary crying in her own room
+and carefully washing away all traces of the process before opening the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>Robert made all his preparations for departure that afternoon, and on
+the following morning was driven to the Court House in the family
+carriage. When he arrived there he got what letters there were for him
+in the post-office, read them, and talked a few moments with Ewing
+Pagebrook, who had spent the preceding night with Foggy and Dr.
+Harrison, and was now deeply contrite and rather anxious than otherwise
+that Robert should scold him. There was no time, however, even for the
+giving of advice, as the train had now come, and Robert must go at once.
+A hasty hand-shaking closed the interview, and Robert was gone.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook Goes to Work.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>When Robert arrived in Philadelphia his first care was to make inquiries
+with regard to the bank in which his money was deposited. He learned
+that it had suspended payment about one week before, and that its
+affairs were in the hands of an assignee. This was all he could find out
+on the afternoon of his arrival, and with this he was forced to content
+himself until the next day, when he succeeded with some little
+difficulty in securing an interview with the assignee. To him he said:
+"My only purpose is to ascertain the exact state of the bank's affairs,
+in order that I may know what to do."</p>
+
+<p>"That I cannot tell you, sir. The books are still in confusion, and
+until they can be straightened out it is impossible to say what the
+result will be."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, then, are the assets anything like equal to the liabilities?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is exactly what the books must show. I can't say till we get a
+statement."</p>
+
+<p>"You can at least tell me then," said Robert, provoked at the man's
+reticence, "whether there are any assets at all, or not."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I can make no statement until the books are examined. Then a
+complete exhibit of affairs will be made."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me," said Robert, "but this question is one of serious moment
+to me. You have been examining this bank's affairs for a week, I
+believe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, about a week."</p>
+
+<p>"You must have some idea, then, whether or not there is likely to be
+anything at all left for depositors, and you will oblige me very much
+indeed by giving me your personal opinion on the subject. I understand
+how impossible it is to give exact figures; but you cannot have failed
+to discover by this time whether or not the assets amount to anything
+worth considering, as compared with the amount of the bank's
+liabilities. I would like the little information you can give me,
+however inexact it may be."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear sir," said the assignee, "I'm afraid you don't understand these
+things. Our statement is not ready yet, and I can not possibly tell you
+what its nature will be until it is."</p>
+
+<p>"When will it be ready, sir?" asked Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"That I can not say as yet, but it will be forthcoming in due time, sir;
+in due time."</p>
+
+<p>"Will it require a week, or a month, or two or three months? You can, at
+least, make an approximate estimate of the time necessary for its
+preparation."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no," said the man of business, "I should not like to make any
+promises; I am hard at work, and the statement will be ready in due
+time, sir; in due time."</p>
+
+<p>Robert left the man's presence thoroughly disgusted. Thinking the matter
+over he concluded that the affairs of the bank must be in a very bad
+way. Otherwise, he argued, the man would not be so silent on the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>Now the assignee was perfectly right in saying that Robert did not
+understand these things. If he had understood them he would have known
+that the reticence from which he thus argued the worst, meant just
+nothing at all. Business men are not apt to commit themselves
+unnecessarily in any case, and especially in such a case as the one
+concerning which Robert had been inquiring. The bank might have been
+utterly bankrupt or entirely solvent, and that assignee would in either
+case have given precisely the same answers to our young friend's
+questions. He knew nothing with absolute certainty as yet, and could
+know nothing certainly until the last column of figures should be added
+up and the final balances struck. Then he could make a statement, but
+until then he would say nothing at all. He acted after his kind.
+Business is business; and, as a rule, business men know only one way of
+doing things.</p>
+
+<p>Robert, however, was not a business man. He knew nothing about these
+things, and accordingly, making no allowance for a business habit as one
+of the factors in the problem, he proceeded to argue that if the affairs
+of the bank were in the least degree hopeful the man would have said so.
+As he had carefully and persistently avoided saying anything of the
+kind, Robert could only conclude that there was no hope at all to be
+entertained.</p>
+
+<p>He quickly determined, therefore, to waste no more time. Abandoning his
+sixteen hundred dollars as utterly lost, he packed his valise and went
+at once to New York to find work of some kind. How he succeeded we shall
+best see from his letter to Cousin Sudie, from which I am allowed to
+quote a passage or two.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very busy with some topical articles, as the newspaper folk call
+them. That is to say, I am visiting factories of various kinds and
+writing detailed accounts of their operations, coupling with the facts
+gathered thus, a gossipy account of the origin, history, etc., of the
+industry. I find the work very interesting, and it promises to be quite
+remunerative too. I fell into it by accident. About a year ago I spent
+an evening with a friend, Mr. Dudley, in New York, and while at his
+house his seven year old boy showed me some of his toys&mdash;little German
+contrivances; and I, knowing something about the toys and the people who
+make them&mdash;you know I made a summer trip through Europe once&mdash;fell to
+telling him about them. His father was as much interested as he, but the
+matter soon passed from my mind. When I came over here a week ago to
+look for something to do I visited the office of this paper, hoping that
+I should be allowed to do a little reporting or drudgery of some sort
+till something better should turn up. Who should I find in the editor's
+chair but my friend Dudley. I told him my errand, and his reply was:</p>
+
+<p>"'I haven't a moment now, Pagebrook, but you're the very man I want;
+come up and see me this evening. We dine at half-past six, and over our
+roast-beef I can explain fully what I mean.'</p>
+
+<p>"I went, as a matter of course, and at dinner Dudley said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Our paper, Pagebrook, is meant to be a kind of American Penny
+Magazine. That is to say, we want to fill it full of <i>entertaining</i>
+information, partly for the sake of the information but more for the
+sake of the entertainment. Now I have tried at least fifty people, in
+the hope of finding somebody who could tell, in writing, just such
+things as you told our Ben when you were here a year ago. I never
+dreamed of getting you to do it, but you're just the man, and about the
+only one, too, I begin to think. Now, if you've a mind to do it, I can
+keep you busy as long as you like. I don't mean to confine you to this
+particular kind of work, but I'd rather have articles of that sort than
+any others, and the publishers won't grumble if I pay you twenty dollars
+apiece for them. They mustn't exceed two of our columns&mdash;say two
+thousand words in all&mdash;but if you can't tell your story in any
+particular instance within those limits, you can make two articles out
+of it. I've already told your toy story, but you can easily hunt up
+plenty of other things to tell about. Common things are best&mdash;things
+people see every day but know nothing about.'</p>
+
+<p>"I set to work the next day, and have been busy ever since. I like to
+visit factories and learn all the petty details of their operations, and
+I find that it is the petty details which go to make the description
+interesting. I like the work so well that I almost wish I had no
+professorship, so that I might follow as a business this kind of
+writing, and some other sorts in which I seem to succeed&mdash;for I do not
+confine myself to one class of articles, or to one paper either, for
+that matter, but am trying my hand at a variety of things, and I find
+the work very fascinating. But it is altogether better, I suppose, that
+I should retain my position in the college, even if I could be sure of
+always finding as good a market as I do just now for my wares, which is
+doubtful. I have lost the whole of my little reserve fund&mdash;as the bank
+seems hopelessly broken; and if I had nothing to depend upon except the
+problematic sale of articles, I would do you a wrong to ask you to let
+our wedding-day remain fixed. As it is, my salary from the college is
+more than sufficient for our support, and as my expenses from now until
+the time appointed will be very small indeed, I shall have several
+hundred dollars accumulated by that time; wherefore if Uncle Carter does
+not object, pray let our plans remain undisturbed, will you not, Sudie?"</p>
+
+<p>The rest of this letter, which is a very long one, is not only personal
+in its character, but is also of a strictly private nature; and while I
+am free to copy here so much of this and other letters in my possession
+as will aid me in the telling of my story, I do not feel myself at
+liberty to let the reader into the sacred inner chambers of a
+correspondence with which we have properly no concern, except as it
+helps us to the understanding of this history.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>A Short Chapter, not very interesting, perhaps, but of some Importance
+in the Story, as the Reader will probably discover after awhile.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>When the letter from which a quotation was made in the preceding chapter
+came to Miss Sudie, that young lady was not at Shirley but at The Oaks,
+where Ewing was lying very ill. He had been prostrated suddenly, a few
+days before, and from the first had been delirious with fever. The
+doctor had appeared unusually anxious regarding his patient ever since
+he was first summoned to see him, and Cousin Sarah Ann having given way
+to her alarm at the evident danger in which her son lay to such an
+extent as to be wholly useless to herself or to anybody else, Miss Sudie
+had been called in to act as temporary mistress of the mansion.</p>
+
+<p>The very next mail after the one which brought her letter, had in it one
+from Robert addressed to Ewing himself. Miss Sudie, upon discovering it
+in the bag, carried it to Cousin Sarah Ann, and was very decidedly
+shocked when that estimable lady without a word broke the seal and read
+the letter, putting it carefully away afterwards in Ewing's desk, of
+which she had the key. Miss Sudie said nothing, however, and the matter
+was almost forgotten when in the evening the doctor came and sat down by
+the sick boy's bed.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it my duty to tell you," said he to Cousin Sarah Ann, "that the
+crisis of the disease is rapidly approaching, and I must wait here until
+it passes. Your son is in very great danger; but we shall know within a
+few hours whether there is hope for him or not. I confess that while I
+hope the best I fear the worst."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pagebrook was thoroughly overcome by her fright. She loved her son,
+in her own queer way; and being a very weak woman she gave way entirely
+when she understood in how very critical a condition the boy was. It was
+necessary to exclude her from the room, and the doctor remained, with
+Miss Sudie and Maj. Pagebrook. About midnight he stood and looked
+intently at the sick man's features, listening also to his hard-coming
+breath. He stood there full half an hour&mdash;then turning to Miss Sudie, he
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"It's of no use, Miss Barksdale. Our young friend is beyond hope. He
+cannot live an hour. Perhaps you'd better inform his mother."</p>
+
+<p>But before Miss Sudie could leave the bedside, Ewing roused himself for
+a moment, and tried to say something to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell Robert&mdash;I got sick the very day&mdash;twenty-one&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>This was all Miss Sudie could hear, and she thought the patient's mind
+was wandering still, as it had been throughout his illness. And these
+incoherent words were the last the young man ever uttered.</p>
+
+<p>About a week after Ewing's death Cousin Sarah Ann said to Maj.
+Pagebrook:</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Edwin, are you ever going to collect that money from Robert? He
+promised to pay you on or before the fifteenth of November, and now it's
+nearly the last of the month and you haven't a line of explanation from
+him yet. I told you he wouldn't pay it till we made him. You oughtn't
+to've let him run away in your debt at all, and you wouldn't either, if
+you'd a'listened to me. Why don't you write to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't like to press the poor fellow. He's lost his money you
+know, and I reckon he finds it hard to pull through till January. He'll
+pay when he can, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>"O that's always the way with you! For my part I don't believe he had
+any money in the bank; and besides he said there was some money coming
+to him on his salary, and he promised faithfully to pay you out of that.
+I told you he wouldn't, because I knew him. He tried to make out he was
+so much superior to the rest of us, and talked about 'reforming' poor
+Ewing, just as if the poor boy was a drunkard and&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;if you
+don't write I will, and I'll make him pay that money too, or I'll know
+why."</p>
+
+<p>The conversation ended as such conversations usually did in Maj.
+Pagebrook's family, namely, by the abrupt departure of that gentleman
+from the house.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Sarah Ann evidently meant what she said, and her husband was no
+sooner out of the house than she got out her desk and wrote; not to
+Robert, however, but to Messrs. Steel, Flint &amp; Sharp, attorneys and
+counselors at law, in New York city. Her note was not a long one, but it
+told the whole story of Robert's indebtedness from a not very favorable
+point of view, and closed with a request that the attorneys should "push
+the case by every means the law allows." This note was signed not with
+Cousin Sarah Ann's own but with her husband's name, and her first
+proceeding, after sealing the letter, was to send it by a servant to the
+post-office. She then ordered her carriage and drove over to Shirley.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Cousin Sarah Ann Takes Robert's Part.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Cousin Sarah Ann talked a good deal. Ill-natured people sometimes said
+she talked a good deal of nonsense, and possibly she did, but she never
+talked without a purpose, and she commonly managed to talk pretty
+successfully, too, so far as the accomplishment of her ends was
+concerned. In the present case, while I am wholly unprepared to say
+exactly why she wanted to talk, I am convinced that this excellent
+lady's visit to Shirley was undertaken solely for the purpose of
+securing an opportunity to talk.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived there, she greeted her friends with her black-bordered
+handkerchief over her eyes, and for a time seemed hardly able to speak
+at all, so overpowering was her emotion. Then she said:</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't think of visiting at such a time as this, of course, but
+Shirley seems so much like home, and I felt like I must have somebody to
+talk to who could sympathize with me. Dear Sudie was <i>so</i> good to me
+during&mdash;during it all."</p>
+
+<p>After a time Cousin Sarah Ann composed herself, and controlled her
+emotion sufficiently to converse connectedly without making painful
+pauses, though her voice continued from first to last to be
+uncomfortably suggestive of recent weeping.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you had any news of Robert lately?" she asked; "I do hope he's
+doing well."</p>
+
+<p>"We've had no letters since Sudie's came while she was at your house,"
+said Colonel Barksdale. "He was doing very well then, I believe, though
+he thought there was no hope of recovering anything from the bank."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm <i>so</i> sorry," said Cousin Sarah Ann, "for I love Robert. He was so
+like an older brother to my poor boy. I feel just like a mother to him,
+and I can't bear to have anybody say anything against him."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody ever does say anything to his discredit, I suppose," said Col.
+Barksdale. "He is really one of the finest young men I ever knew, and
+the very soul of honor, too. He comes honestly by that, however, for his
+father was just so before him."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I tell Cousin Edwin," said Cousin Sarah Ann. "I tell
+him dear Robert means to do right, and will do it just as soon as ever
+he can. Poor fellow! he has been <i>so</i> unfortunate. Somebody must have
+made Cousin Edwin suspicious of him, else he wouldn't think so badly of
+poor Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Sarah Ann, what do you mean?" asked Col. Barksdale. "Surely Edwin
+has no reason to think ill of Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"No, that he hasn't; and that's what I tell him. But he's been
+prejudiced and won't hear a word. He says nothing about it to anybody
+but me, but he really suspects Robert of meaning to cheat him, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Cheat him!" cried all in a breath, "Why, how can that be?"</p>
+
+<p>"O it <i>can't</i> be, and so I tell Cousin Edwin; but he insists that Robert
+told him he would pay that three hundred dollars on or before the
+fifteenth, and I reckon the poor boy hasn't been able to do it, or he
+would."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Sarah Ann, you don't tell me that Robert has failed to pay Edwin
+that money!" said the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I thought you knew that, or I wouldn't have told you about it. No,
+he hasn't sent it yet; but he will, of course, if I can keep Cousin
+Edwin from writing him violent letters about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Hasn't he written to explain the delay?" asked the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"No; and that's what Cousin Edwin always reminds me of when I try to
+take Robert's part. He says if he meant to be honest he would have
+written. I tell him I know how it is. I can fully understand Robert's
+silence. He has failed to get money when he expected it, I reckon, and
+has naturally hated to write till he could send the money. Poor boy! I'm
+afraid he'll overwork himself and half starve himself, too, trying to
+get that money together, when we could wait for it just as well as not."</p>
+
+<p>"There certainly can be no apology for his failure to write, after
+promising payment on a definite day," said Col. Barksdale; "and I am
+both surprised and grieved that he should have acted in so unworthy a
+way!"</p>
+
+<p>With this the Colonel arose and paced the room in evident anger.
+Robert's champion, Cousin Sarah Ann, could not stand this.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely <i>you</i> are not going to turn against poor Robert without giving
+him a hearing, are you, Cousin Carter? I thought you too just for that,
+though I should never have mentioned the subject at all if I hadn't
+thought you all knew about it, and would take Robert's part like me."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall give him a hearing," said the Colonel; "but in the meantime I
+must say his conduct has been very singular&mdash;very singular indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"O he's only thoughtless!" said the excellent woman, in her anxiety to
+shield "dear Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"No; he is not thoughtless. He never is thoughtless, whatever else he
+may be. If you wish to defend him, Sarah Ann, you must find some other
+excuse for his conduct. Confound the fellow! I can't help loving him,
+but if he isn't what I took him for, I'll&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel did not finish his threat; perhaps he hardly knew how.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Cousin Carter, please don't you fly into a passion like Cousin
+Edwin does," said Cousin Sarah Ann, pleadingly, "but wait till you find
+out all the facts. Write to Robert, and I'm sure he will explain it all.
+I wish I hadn't said a word about it."</p>
+
+<p>"You did perfectly right, perfectly," said Colonel Barksdale. "If Robert
+has failed in a point of honor, I ought to know it, because in that case
+I have a duty to do&mdash;a painful one, but a duty nevertheless."</p>
+
+<p>"O you men have no charity at all. You're <i>so</i> hard on one another, and
+I'm so sorry I said anything about it. Good-by, Cousin Mary. Good-by,
+Sudie dear. Come and see me, won't you? I miss you <i>so</i> much in my
+trouble. Come often. Come and stay some with me. Do. That's a dear."</p>
+
+<p>And so Cousin Sarah Ann drove away, rejoicing in the consciousness that
+she had vigorously defended the absent Robert; and perhaps rejoicing too
+in the conviction that that gentleman could not possibly explain his
+conduct to the satisfaction of Colonel Barksdale.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Miss Barksdale Expresses some Opinions.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Miss Sudie Barksdale was a very brave little woman, and she needed all
+her courage on the present occasion. She felt the absolute necessity
+there was that she should sit out Cousin Sarah Ann's conversation, and
+she sat it out, in what agony it is not hard to imagine. When that lady
+drove away Miss Sudie ran off to her room, where she remained for two or
+three hours. Upon her privacy we will not intrude.</p>
+
+<p>Col. Barksdale called Billy from his office, and giving him the newly
+discovered facts, asked his opinion. Billy was simply thunderstruck.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't understand it," said he; "Bob certainly had that money coming
+to him from his last year's salary, for he told me about it the day we
+first met in Philadelphia. If Bob isn't a man of honor, in the strictest
+sense of the term, I never was so deceived in anybody in my life. And
+yet this business looks as ugly as home-made sin. Bob knew perfectly
+well that if you or I had been at home when he left we wouldn't have
+allowed his protested draft to stand over at all, but would have paid it
+on the spot. He knew too that if he couldn't pay when he promised he
+could have written to me or to you explaining the matter, and we would
+have lent him the money for twenty years if necessary. I don't
+understand it at all. It looks ugly. It looks as if he meant to make
+that money clear."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my son," said Col. Barksdale, "I'll give him one chance to
+explain at any rate. I'll write to him immediately."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly the old gentleman went to his library and was engaged for
+some time in writing. After awhile there came a knock at his door, and
+Miss Sudie entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, daughter," said he, tenderly. "I want to talk with you."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you would," said the sad-eyed little maiden, "and that's why
+I came. I wanted our talk to be private."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a good girl, my child." Then, after a pause, "This is bad news
+about Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and from a bad source," said Sudie.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not understand you, daughter."</p>
+
+<p>"We have the best of authority, Uncle Carter, for saying that 'men do
+not gather grapes of thorns!'"</p>
+
+<p>"But, my child, I suppose there can be no doubt of the facts in this
+case, so far as we have them. We know the circumstances of Robert's
+indebtedness to Edwin, and whatever her motives may have been, Sarah Ann
+would hardly venture to say that he has neither paid nor written in
+explanation of his failure to do so, if he had done either."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not."</p>
+
+<p>"Robert ought to have paid at any cost to himself if it were possible;
+and if it were not, then he should have written in a frank, manly way,
+explaining his inability to fulfill his promise. Appearances are so
+strongly against him that I have written with very little hope of
+eliciting any satisfactory reply."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you mind letting me see what you have written, Uncle Carter?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; you may read the letter. Here it is."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sudie read it. It ran thus:</p>
+
+<p>"I have just now learned that you have wholly failed to fulfill your
+solemn and deliberate promise, made on the eve of your departure from
+Shirley, to the effect that you would, without fail, take up your
+protested draft for three hundred dollars ($300), held by your Cousin
+Major Edwin Pagebrook, on or before the fifteenth (15th), day of this
+current month. It is now the thirtieth (30th), and hence your promise is
+fifteen (15) days over due. I learn also that you have failed to write
+in explanation of your delinquency or in any way to account or apologise
+for it. Permit me to say that as your conduct presents itself to me at
+this time, it is unworthy the gentleman which you profess to be, and I
+now demand of you either that you shall give me immediately a
+satisfactory explanation of the matter&mdash;and that, I must confess, sir,
+seems hardly possible&mdash;or that you shall at once write to my niece and
+adopted daughter, releasing her from her engagement with you."</p>
+
+<p>Having finished reading the letter Sudie handed it back to her uncle
+without a word of comment. Not that she was in this or in any other case
+afraid to express her opinion. Her uncle knew very well when he gave her
+the letter that she would say absolutely nothing about it until he
+should ask her, and he knew equally well that upon asking her he would
+get a perfectly honest expression of her thought, whatever it might
+happen to be. But Colonel Barksdale was, for the time, afraid to ask her
+opinion. He was a brave man and an honest one. He was known throughout
+the state as a lawyer of great ability and as a gentleman of the most
+undoubted sort. And yet at this moment he found himself afraid of a
+young girl, who stood in the relation of daughter to him&mdash;a girl who was
+never violent in word or act, a girl who honored him as a father and
+loved him with all her heart. He knew she would unhesitatingly speak the
+truth, and it was the truth of which he was afraid. He had not been
+aware, when he wrote, of any disposition to do Robert injustice, else,
+being a just man, he would have spurned the thought from him; but now
+that he felt bound to ask Miss Sudie for her opinion of his course, he
+became uncomfortably conscious that there had been other impulses than
+just ones governing him in his choice of language. At last he asked the
+dreaded question.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think, daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you have not done yourself justice, Uncle Carter, in writing
+such a letter as that. The letter is not like you, at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean why and wherefore?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Why and wherefore, Sudie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is not like you to do an act of injustice, and when you are
+betrayed into one you misrepresent yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"But wherein is my letter an act of injustice, my child?"</p>
+
+<p>"It assumes unproved guilt; and I believe even criminals are entitled to
+a more favorable starting-point than that in their efforts to clear
+themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Sudie, I have not assumed that Robert is guilty. I have asked him
+to explain."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and in the very act of asking him to explain to you, his judge,
+you have assured him from the bench that the court believes an
+explanation impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"Have I? Let me see."</p>
+
+<p>After looking at the letter again he resumed:</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you are right about that; I will rewrite the letter, omitting
+the objectionable clause. Is that all Sudie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps when you come to rewrite the letter you will see that its tone
+is as unjust as any words could possibly be. It seems so to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me try my hand again, daughter. Keep your seat please while I write
+a new letter instead of rewriting the old one."</p>
+
+<p>"There. How will that do?" he asked, as he handed the young woman this
+hastily-written note.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">My Dear Robert</span>: We have just been hearing some news of you, which
+I trust you will be able to contradict or explain. It is that you
+have failed to keep your promise in the matter of your indebtedness
+to Major Pagebrook, and that you have not even offered a word by
+way of apology or explanation. The peculiar relations in which you
+now stand to my family justify me, I think, in asking you to
+explain a matter which, unexplained, must reflect upon your
+character as an honorable man. Please write to me by return mail."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"That is more like you, Uncle Carter. But I am sorry to find that you
+are convinced, in advance, of Robert's guilt. You propose to sit in
+judgment upon his case, and a court should not only appear but be free
+from bias."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, my daughter, I can hardly see how there can be any possible excuse
+in a case like this. You cannot deny that both facts and appearances are
+against him."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt whether we have the facts yet, Uncle Carter. Aside from my
+knowledge of Cous&mdash;of Sarah Ann Pagebrook's general character, I saw
+her do a dishonorable thing once. I saw her open and read a letter which
+was not addressed to her, and I have no faith whatever in her, or in any
+statement which comes from her or through her."</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Barksdale was probably not sorry that the conversation was
+interrupted at this point by the entrance of a servant announcing a
+client. He felt that it would be idle to argue with Sudie in a matter in
+which her feelings were strongly enlisted, and he felt that in calling
+Robert to an account he was doing a simple duty. He was, therefore,
+rather pleased than otherwise to have an accident terminate a
+conversation which did not promise to terminate itself agreeably.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sudie went to her room and wrote to Robert on her own account. I am
+not at liberty to print her letter here, as I should greatly like to do,
+but the reader will readily guess its general nature. She told Robert in
+detail everything that had been said concerning him that day. She told
+him of her uncle's anger, and of the probability that everybody would
+believe him guilty if he failed to establish his innocence; but she
+assured him that she, at least, had no idea of doubting him for a
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>"For your sake," she wrote, "I hope you will be able to offer a
+convincing explanation; but whether you can do that or not, Robert, <i>I
+know</i> that you are true and manly, and not even facts shall ever make me
+doubt your truth. I may never be able to see how your action has been
+right, but I shall know, nevertheless, that it has been so. My woman
+love is truer, to me at least, than logic&mdash;truer than fact&mdash;truer than
+truth itself."</p>
+
+<p>All this was very illogical&mdash;very unreasonable, but very natural. It was
+"just like a woman" to set her emotions up in a holy place and compel
+her reason to do homage to them as to a god. And that is the very best
+thing there is about women, too. You and I, sir, would fare badly if in
+naming a woman wife we could not feel assured that her love will ever
+override her reason in matters concerning us.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Sharp Does His Duty.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>The law firm of Steel, Flint &amp; Sharp was a thoroughly well constituted
+one. Its organization was an admirable example of means perfectly
+adapted to the accomplishment of ends. It was not an eminent firm but it
+was an eminently successful one, particularly in the lines of business
+to which it gave special attention, and the leading one of these was
+collecting doubtful debts, as Cousin Sarah Ann had learned from one of
+the firm's cards which had fallen in her way. Indeed it was the
+accidental possession of this card which enabled her to put the matter
+of Robert's indebtedness into the hands of New York attorneys, and I
+suspect that she would never have thought of doing so at all but for the
+enticing words, fairly printed upon the card&mdash;"particular attention
+given to the collection of doubtful debts, due to non-residents of New
+York."</p>
+
+<p>A prophet, we know, is not without honor save in his own country, and so
+it is not strange that the people who familiarly knew the countenances
+of the gentlemen composing the firm of Steel, Flint &amp; Sharp, esteemed
+these gentlemen less highly than did those other people, resident
+outside of New York, who could know these counselors at law only through
+their profusely distributed cards and circulars. Such was the fact; and
+as a result it happened that the clients of the firm were chiefly people
+who, living in other parts of the country, were compelled to intrust
+their business in New York to the hands of whatever attorneys they
+believed were the leading ones in the metropolis. And it was to let
+people know who were the leading lawyers of the city, that Messrs.
+Steel, Flint &amp; Sharp industriously scattered their cards and circulars
+throughout the country.</p>
+
+<p>Who Mr. Steel was I do not know, and I am strongly inclined to suspect
+that the rest of the world, including his partners, were in a state of
+equal ignorance. He was never seen about the firm's offices, and never
+represented anybody in court, but he was frequently referred to by his
+partners, especially when clients were disposed to complain of
+apparently exorbitant charges.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Steel can not give his attention to a case, sir, for nothing. His
+reputation is at stake, sir, in all we undertake. I really do not feel
+at liberty to ask Mr. Steel to authorize any reduction in this case,
+sir. He gave his personal attention to the papers&mdash;his personal
+attention, sir."</p>
+
+<p>And this would commonly send clients away suppressed, if not satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Flint was well enough known. He managed the business of the firm. It
+was he who always knew precisely what Mr. Steel's opinion was. He
+alone, of all the world, was able to speak positively of matters
+concerning Mr. Steel. Mr. Sharp was his junior in the firm, though
+considerably his senior in years. For Mr. Sharp Mr. Flint entertained
+not one particle of respect, because that gentleman was not always what
+his name implied. Mr. Sharp left to himself would have been hopelessly
+honest and straightforward. He would have gone to the dogs, speedily,
+Mr. Flint said, but for his association with himself.</p>
+
+<p>"But you have excellent ability in your way, Sharp, excellent ability,"
+he would say when in a good humor. "You are a capital executive
+officer&mdash;a very good lieutenant. Your ideas of what to do in any given
+case are not always good, but when I tell you what to do you do it,
+Sharp. I always know you will do what I tell you, and do it well too."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sharp usually came to the office an hour earlier than Mr. Flint did,
+in order that he might have everything ready for Mr. Flint's examination
+when that gentleman should arrive. He read the letters, drew up papers,
+and was prepared to give his partner in each case the facts upon which
+his opinion or advice was necessary.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of December 3d, Mr. Flint came softly into his office
+and, after hanging up his overcoat and warming his hands at the
+register, went into his inner den, saying, as he sat down:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm ready for you now, Sharp."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sharp arose from his desk and entered the private room, with his
+hands full of papers.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the first thing on docket, Sharp?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, here's a collection to be made. Debtor, Robert Pagebrook,
+temporarily in the city. Boarding place not known. Writes for the
+newspapers, so I can easily find him. Creditor Edwin Pagebrook, of &mdash;&mdash;
+Court House, Virginia. Debtor got creditor to cash draft for three
+hundred dollars. Draft protested. Debtor came away, and promised to take
+up paper by fifteenth November. Hasn't done it. Instructions 'push
+him.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Any limitations?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"What have you done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing yet; I'll look him up to-day and dun him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and let him get away from you. Sharp do you know that Julius Cæsar
+is dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad to hear that you do know something then. Don't you see the
+point in this case? Go and make out affidavits on information. This
+fellow Robert what's his name is a 'transient,' and we'll get an order
+of arrest all ready and then you can dun him with some sense. Have your
+officer with you or convenient, and if he don't pay up, chuck him in
+jail. That's the way to do it. Never waste time dunning 'transients'
+when there's a ghost of a chance to cage them."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but there don't seem to be any fraud here. The man seems to have
+had funds in the bank, only the bank suspended."</p>
+
+<p>"Sharp, you'll learn a little law after awhile, I hope. Don't you know
+the courts never look very sharply after cases where transients are
+concerned? How do we know he had money in the bank? Is there anything to
+show it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I believe not."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, don't you go to making facts in the interest of the other
+side. Let him make that out if he can. You just draw your affidavits to
+suit our purposes, not his. Go on to state that he drew a certain bill
+of exchange, and represented that he had funds, and so fraudulently
+obtained money, and all that; and then go on to say that his draft upon
+presentation was protested, and that instead of making it good he
+absconded. Be sure to say absconded, Sharp, it's half the battle. Courts
+haven't much use for men that abscond and then turn up in New York. Make
+your case strong enough, though. We only swear on information, you know,
+so if we do put it a little strong it don't matter. There. Go and fix it
+up right away, and then catch your man."</p>
+
+<p>A few hours later, as Robert Pagebrook sat writing in his room, Mr.
+Sharp and another man were shown in. Mr. Sharp opened the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Mr. Pagebrook, I believe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. <i>Robert</i> Pagebrook?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. That is my name."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. My name is Sharp, of the firm of Steel, Flint &amp; Sharp.
+That's our card, sir. I have called to solicit the payment, sir, of a
+small amount due Mr. Edwin Pagebrook, who has written asking us to
+collect it for him. The amount is three hundred dollars, I think.
+Yes. Here is the draft. Can you let me have the money to-day, Mr.
+Pagebrook?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have already remitted one third the amount, sir," said Robert, "and I
+hope to send the remainder in installments very soon. At present it is
+simply impossible for me to pay anything more."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you a receipt for the amount remitted?" asked the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"No. It was sent only yesterday. But if you will hold the draft a week
+or ten days longer, I will be able, within that time, to earn the whole
+of the amount remaining due, and your client will advise you, I am sure,
+of the receipt of the hundred dollars already sent."</p>
+
+<p>"We are not authorised to wait, sir," said Mr. Sharp. "On the contrary
+our instructions are positive to push the case."</p>
+
+<p>"But what can I do?" asked Robert. "I have already sent every dollar I
+had, and until I earn more I can pay no more."</p>
+
+<p>"The case is a peculiar one, sir. It has the appearance of a fraudulent
+debt and an attempt to run away from it. I must do my duty by my client,
+sir; and so this gentleman, who is a sheriff's officer, has an order for
+your arrest, which I must ask him to serve if you do not pay the debt to
+day."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus7" id="illus7"></a>
+<img src="images/illus7.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"LET HIM SERVE IT AT ONCE, THEN."</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>"Let him serve it at once, then," said Robert. "I can not pay now."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook Takes a Lesson in the Law.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>As Robert was unable to give bail without calling upon his friend
+Dudley, which he determined not to do in any case, he was taken to the
+jail and locked up. Upon his arrival there he employed a messenger to
+carry a note to a young lawyer with whom he happened to be slightly
+acquainted, asking him to come to the jail at once. When he arrived
+Robert said to him:</p>
+
+<p>"Let me tell you in the outset, Mr. Dyker, that I have no money and no
+friends; wherefore if you allow me to consult you at all, it must be
+with the understanding that I cannot possibly pay you for your services
+until I can make the money. If you are willing to trust me to that
+extent, we can proceed to business."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very honorable, sir, to inform me, beforehand, of this fact.
+Pray go on. I will do what I can for you."</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place, then," said Robert, "I am a little puzzled to know
+how or why I am locked up. You have the papers, will you tell me how it
+is?"</p>
+
+<p>"O it's plain enough. You are held under an order of arrest."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't understand. I thought imprisonment for debt was a thing of
+the past, in this country at least, and my only offense is indebtedness.
+Is it possible that men may still be imprisoned for debt in America?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is about it," said the lawyer. "We have abolished the name
+but retain the thing in a slightly modified form&mdash;in New York at least.
+Theoretically you are not imprisoned, but merely held to answer. The
+plaintiffs have made out a case of fraud and non-residence, and so they
+had plain sailing."</p>
+
+<p>"But I always understood that our constitution or our law or something
+else secured every man against imprisonment except by due process of
+law, and gave to every accused person the right to be confronted with
+his accusers, to cross-examine witnesses, and to have his guilt or
+innocence passed upon by a jury of his countrymen."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the theory; but there are some classes of cases which are
+practically exceptions, and yours is one of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Robert, "it is true, is it, that an American may be
+arrested and sent to jail without trial, upon the mere strength of
+affidavits made by lawyers who know nothing of the facts except what
+they have heard from distant, irresponsible, and personally interested
+clients&mdash;affidavits upon information, I believe you call them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you put it a little strongly, perhaps, but those are the facts in
+New York. Respectable lawyers, however, are careful to satisfy
+themselves of the facts before proceeding at all in such cases; and so
+the law, which is a very convenient one, rarely ever works injustice, I
+think&mdash;not once in twenty times, I should say."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Robert, "the personal liberty of every non-resident and some
+resident debtors is, or in some cases may be, dependent solely upon the
+character of attorneys, as I understand you."</p>
+
+<p>"In some cases, yes. But pardon me. Had we not better come to the matter
+in hand?"</p>
+
+<p>"As we are not a legislature perhaps it would be better," said Robert.
+He then proceeded to relate the facts of the case, beginning with his
+drawing of the draft in good faith, its protest, and his consequent
+perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not 'abscond' at all," he continued, "but came away to see if I
+could save something from the wreck of the bank, and to seek work. In
+leaving, I promised to pay the debt on or before the fifteenth of last
+month, feeling certain that I could do so. I failed to do it,
+through&mdash;&mdash;never mind, I failed to do it, but I have been trying hard
+ever since to get the money and discharge the obligation. I yesterday
+remitted a hundred dollars, and should have sent the rest as fast as I
+could make it. These are the facts. Now how am I to get out of here?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have nobody to go your bail?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody."</p>
+
+<p>"And no money?"</p>
+
+<p>"None. I sold my watch in order to get money on which to live while I
+was looking for work."</p>
+
+<p>"You did have money enough to your credit in that bank to have made your
+draft good if the bank hadn't suspended?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You can swear to that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I think we can manage this matter without much difficulty. We can
+admit the facts but deny the fraudulent intent, in affidavits of our
+own, and get discharged on that ground. I think we can easily overthrow
+the theory of fraud by showing that you actually had the money in bank
+and swearing that you drew against it in good faith."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me; but in doing that I should be bound, should I not, in honor
+if not in law, to state all the facts of the case in my affidavit? The
+theory of the proceeding is that I am putting the court in possession of
+all the facts and withholding nothing, is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;yes. I suppose it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Then let us abandon that plan forthwith."</p>
+
+<p>"But my dear sir&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pray don't argue the point. My mind is fully made up. Is there no other
+mode of securing my release?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; you might schedule out under article 5 of the Non-Imprisonment
+Act, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"How is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a sort of insolvency or bankruptcy proceeding, by which you come
+into court&mdash;any court of record&mdash;and offer to give up everything you
+have to your creditors, giving a sworn catalogue of all your debts and
+all your property, and praying release on the ground that you are
+unable to do more."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as I have literally nothing in the way of property just now, that
+mode of procedure seems to fit my case precisely," said Robert, whose
+courage and good humor and indomitable cheerfulness stood him in good
+stead in this time of very sore trial. The world looked gloomy enough to
+him then in whatever way he chose to look at it, but the instinct of
+fight was large within him, and in the absence of other joys he felt a
+savage pleasure in knowing that his life henceforth must be a constant
+struggle against fearful odds&mdash;odds of prejudice as well as of poverty;
+for who could now take him by the hand and say to others this is my
+friend?</p>
+
+<p>"It's too late to accomplish anything to-day, Mr. Pagebrook," said the
+lawyer, looking at his watch; "but I will be here by ten o'clock
+to-morrow morning, and we will then go to work for your deliverance,
+which we can effect, I think, pretty quick. Good evening, sir."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook Cuts himself loose from the Past and Plans a Future.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>When the lawyer had gone Robert sat down to deliberate upon the
+situation and to decide what was to be done in matters aside from the
+question of his release. He had that morning received Col. Barksdale's
+letter and Miss Sudie's. These must be answered at once, and he was not
+quite certain how he should answer them. After turning the matter over
+he determined upon his course and, according to his custom, having
+determined what to do he at once set about doing it. Having brought a
+supply of paper and envelopes from his room he had only to borrow pen
+and ink from the attendant.</p>
+
+<p>His first letter was addressed to the president of the college from
+which he had received his appointment as professor, and it consisted of
+a simple resignation, with no explanation except that contained in the
+sentence:</p>
+
+<p>"I can ill afford to surrender the position or the salary, but there are
+painful circumstances surrounding me, which compel me to this course.
+Pray excuse me from a fuller statement of the case."</p>
+
+<p>To Col. Barksdale he wrote:</p>
+
+<p>"Your letter surprises me only in its kindness and gentleness of tone.
+Under the circumstances I could have forgiven a good deal of harshness.
+For your forbearance, however, you have my hearty thanks. And now as to
+the subject matter of your note: I am sorry to say I can offer neither
+denial nor satisfactory explanation of the facts alleged against me. I
+must bear the blame that attaches to what I have done, and bearing that
+blame I know my duty to you and your family. I shall write by this mail
+to Miss Barksdale volunteering a release, which otherwise you would have
+a right to demand of me."</p>
+
+<p>Sealing this and directing it, Robert came to the hardest task of
+all&mdash;the writing of a letter to Cousin Sudie.</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly know how to write to you," he wrote. "Your generous faith in
+me in spite of everything is more than I had any right to expect, and
+more, I think, than you have any right, in justice to yourself, to give
+me. I thank you for it right heartily, but I feel that I must not accept
+it. When you listened to my words of love and gave them a place in your
+heart, I was a gentleman without reproach. Now a stain is upon my name,
+which I can never remove. The man to whom you promised your hand was not
+the absconding debtor who writes you this from a jail. I send this
+letter, therefore, to offer you a release from your engagement with me,
+if indeed any release be necessary. You cannot afford to know me or even
+to remember me hereafter. Forget me, then, or, if you cannot wholly
+forget, remember me only as an adventurer, who for a paltry sum sold his
+good name.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by. I wish you well with all my heart."</p>
+
+<p>As he sealed these letters Robert felt that his hopes for the future
+were sealed up with them, and that the post which should bear them away
+would carry with it the better part of his life. And yet he did not
+wholly surrender himself to despair, as a weaker man might have done.
+The old life was gone from him forever. The only people whom he had
+known as in any sense his own would grasp his hand no more, and if they
+ever thought of him again it would be only to regret that they had known
+him at all. All this he felt keenly, but it did not follow that he
+should abandon himself, as a consequence. He was still a young man, and
+there was time enough for him to make a new life for himself&mdash;to find
+new friends and to do some worthy work in the world; and to the planning
+of this new life he at once addressed himself.</p>
+
+<p>He would teach no longer, and now that he had cut himself loose from
+that profession there was opportunity to do something at the business
+which he had found so agreeable of late. He would devote himself
+hereafter wholly to writing, and at the first opportunity he would
+become a regular member of the staff of some paper. Even if his earnings
+with his pen should prove small, what did that matter? He could never
+think of marrying now, and a very little would suffice to supply all his
+wants, his habits of life being simple and regular. It stung him when he
+remembered that there was a stain upon his name which could never be
+removed; but that, he knew, he must bear, and so he resolved to bear it
+bravely, as it becomes a man to bear all his burdens.</p>
+
+<p>With thoughts like these the stalwart young fellow sank to sleep on the
+bed assigned him in the jail.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>In which Miss Sudie Acts very Unreasonably.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>The men who make up mails and handle great bags full of letters every
+day of their lives grow accustomed to the business, I suppose, and learn
+after awhile to regard the bags and their contents merely as so many
+pounds of "mail matter." Otherwise they would soon become unfit for
+their duties. If they could weigh those bags with other than material
+scales&mdash;if they could know how many human hopes and fears; how much of
+human purpose and human despair; how many joys and how much of
+wretchedness those bags contain; if they could hear the moans that utter
+themselves inside the canvas; if they could know the varying purposes
+with which all those letters have been written, and the various effects
+they are destined to produce; if our mail carriers could know and feel
+all these things, or the half of them, we should shortly have no mail
+carriers at all. But fortunately there are prosaic souls enough in the
+world to make all necessary mail agents and postmasters, and undertakers
+and grave-diggers out of.</p>
+
+<p>In the small mail bag thrown off at the Court House one December
+morning, there was one little package of New York letters&mdash;three
+letters in all, but on those three letters hung the happiness of several
+human lives. Of one of them we shall learn nothing for the present. The
+other two, from Robert Pagebrook to his uncle and Miss Barksdale, we
+have already been permitted to read. When these were received at
+Shirley, Miss Sudie took hers to her own room and read it there, after
+which she sat down and answered it. Col. Barksdale read his with no
+surprise, as he had not been able to imagine any possible explanation of
+Robert's conduct; and now that that gentleman frankly confessed that
+there was none, he accepted the confession as a bit of evidence in the
+case, for which he had waited merely as a matter of form. It was his
+duty now to talk again with his niece, but he was very tender always in
+his dealings with her, and felt an especial tenderness now that she must
+be suffering sorely. He quietly inquired where she was, and learning
+that she was in her own room, he refrained from summoning her himself,
+and gave her maid particular instructions to allow no one else to
+intrude upon her privacy upon any pretense whatsoever.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy," he said, to the colored woman, "your Miss Sudie wishes to be
+alone for awhile. Sit down in the passage near her door, but don't
+knock, and don't allow any one else to knock. When she wishes to see any
+one she will open the door herself, and until then I do not want her
+disturbed."</p>
+
+<p>Then going into the dining-room, where Dick was polishing the mahogany
+with a large piece of cork, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Dick, go out to the office and ask your Mas' Billy if he will be good
+enough to come to me in the library. I want to talk with him."</p>
+
+<p>When Billy came in his father showed him Robert's letter.</p>
+
+<p>"The thing looks very ugly," said the younger gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"Very ugly, indeed," said his father; "but the confounded rascal holds
+up his head under it all, and acts as honorably in Sudie's case as if he
+had never acted otherwise than as a gentleman should. He is a puzzle to
+me. But, of course, this must end the matter. We can have nothing
+whatever to do with him hereafter."</p>
+
+<p>"But how is it, father, that they have managed to imprison him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I presume they have secured an order of arrest under that New York
+statute which seems to have been devised as a means of securing to
+creditors all the advantages of imprisonment for debt without shocking
+the better sense of the community, which is clearly against such
+imprisonment. The majority of people rarely ever pay any attention to
+the fact so long as they are spared the name of odious things. No
+debtors' prison would be allowed to stand in the United States, of
+course, but the common jails answer all purposes when a way for getting
+debtors locked up in them has been devised."</p>
+
+<p>"But how does it happen, father," asked Mr. Billy, "that only New York
+has such a statute?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, in New York the commercial interest overrides every other, and
+commercial men naturally attach undue importance to the collection of
+debts, and look with favor upon everything which tends to facilitate
+it. These things always reflect the feeling rather than the opinion of a
+community. In new countries, where horses are of more importance than
+anything else, horse-stealing is pretty sure to be punished with death,
+either by law or by the mob, which is only public sentiment embodied.
+Here in Virginia you know how impossible it is to get anything like an
+effective statute for the suppression of dueling, simply because the
+ultimate public sentiment practically approves of personal warfare. But,
+I confess, I did not know that the New York statute could be stretched
+to cover a case like Robert's. As I understand it, there must be some
+evidence of fraud in the inception of the transaction."</p>
+
+<p>"They proceed upon affidavits, I believe," said Billy, "and when that is
+done it isn't hard to make out a case, if the attorney is unscrupulous
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true. But isn't it curious that Edwin should have proceeded so
+promptly to harsh measures? He is so mild of temper that this surprises
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Edwin doesn't always act out his own character, you know,
+father. His wife is the stronger willed of the two."</p>
+
+<p>"True. I hadn't thought of that. However, it serves the young rascal
+right."</p>
+
+<p>At this point of the conversation Cousin Sudie's knock was heard at the
+inner door, and Col. Barksdale opening the outer one said:</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better go out this door, William. It would embarrass Sue to find
+you here just now."</p>
+
+<p>"Come in my daughter," he said, admitting Miss Sudie. "Sit down. I am
+greatly pained, on his account as well as yours, to find that Robert has
+no explanation to offer. But, of course, this ends it all, and you must
+take a little trip somewhere, my dear, until you forget all about it.
+Where shall we go?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not care to go anywhere, Uncle Carter," replied the little maiden,
+without the faintest echo of a sob in her voice. "I am sorry for poor
+Robert, but not because I think him guilty of any dishonorable action,
+for indeed I do not."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear, it will never do&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pray hear me out, Uncle Carter, and then I will listen to anything you
+have to say. I love you as a father, as you know perfectly well. Indeed
+I have never known you as anything else. I have always obeyed you
+unquestioningly, and I shall not begin to disobey you now. I shall do
+precisely what you tell me to do, <i>so long as I remain in your house</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by that, daughter?" asked her uncle, startled by the
+singular emphasis which Miss Sudie gave to the last clause of the
+sentence.</p>
+
+<p>"Merely this, Uncle Carter. I cannot consent to do that which my
+conscience teaches me is a crime, even at your command; but while I
+remain at Shirley as a daughter of the house I must obey as a daughter.
+If you command me to do anything which I cannot do without sinning
+against my conscience, then I must not obey you, and when I can't obey
+you I must cease to be your daughter. I shall conceal nothing from you,
+Uncle Carter; you know that, and I beg of you don't command me to do
+the things which I must not do. I love you and it would kill me&mdash;no, it
+would not do that, but it would pain me more than I can possibly say, to
+leave Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>Col. Barksdale leaned his head sorrowfully upon his hand. He loved this
+girl and held her as his own. Moreover, he had solemnly promised his
+dying brother to care for her always as a father cares for his children,
+and an oath could not have been more sacred in his eyes than this
+promise was. Without raising his head he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"You mean, Sudie, that you will not accept Robert's release?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, uncle, that is what I mean." This was sorrowfully and gently said,
+but firmly too.</p>
+
+<p>"He has offered to release you; has he not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And in so offering, did he express or hint a wish that you should not
+accept his release?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. On the contrary he assumed that I would accept it, and that I must
+do so in justice to myself. Here is his letter. Read it if you please."</p>
+
+<p>Col. Barksdale read the letter, with which the reader is already
+familiar, and, handing it back, said:</p>
+
+<p>"A very proper and manly letter."</p>
+
+<p>"Because it came from a very proper and manly man," said Miss Sudie.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't believe he has been guilty of the dishonorable acts laid to
+his charge, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of the acts, yes. Of the dishonor, no," said the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"On what ground do you base your persistent good opinion of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"On my persistent faith in him."</p>
+
+<p>"Your faith is very unreasonable, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps so, but it exists nevertheless."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you answered his letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; and I have brought my answer for you to read, if you care to
+do so," she said, taking her letter out of her desk, which lay in her
+lap, and giving it to her uncle, who read as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">My Dear Robert</span>:&mdash;I am not in the least surprised by your letter. I knew
+you would offer to release me from my engagement, because I knew you
+were a man of honor. I have never for a moment doubted that, and I do
+not doubt it now. Your character weighs more with me than any mere facts
+can. I know you are an honorable man, and knowing that I shall not let
+other people's doubts upon the subject govern my action. When I
+'listened to your words of love, and gave them a place in my heart,' you
+were, as you say, 'a gentleman without reproach'; and the reproach which
+lies upon you now does not make you less a gentleman. It is an unjust
+reproach, and your manliness in bearing it and offering to accept its
+consequences, only serves to mark you still more distinctly as a
+gentleman. Shall I be less honorable, less fearlessly true than you?
+When I gave you my heart and promised you my hand, you had friends in
+abundance. Now that you have none, I have no idea of withdrawing either
+the gift or the promise.</p>
+
+<p>"You say you can never clear your name of the stain which is upon it
+now. For that I am heartily sorry, for your sake, but as I know that the
+stain does not rightly belong there it becomes my duty and my pleasure
+to bear it with you. I shall retain my faith in you and my love for you,
+and I shall profess them too on all proper occasions, and when you claim
+me as your wife I shall hold up Mrs. Robert Pagebrook's head as proudly
+as I now hold Susan Barksdale's.</p>
+
+<p>"Under other circumstances I should have thought it unmaidenly to write
+in this way, but there must be no doubt of my meaning now. If you ever
+ask a release from your promise, with or without reason, I trust you
+know me well enough to know that it will be granted&mdash;but from my promise
+I shall ask none. Another reason for the frankness of this letter is
+that I want you, in your trouble, to know how implicitly I trust your
+honor; and I should certainly never trust such a letter in any but the
+cleanest of hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Carter will see this before it goes, and he will know, as it is
+right that he should, that I have not availed myself of your proffered
+release...."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The omitted sentences with which the letter closed are not for our eyes.
+Even Colonel Barksdale refused to read them, feeling that they were
+sacred, and that the permission given him to read the letter extended no
+further than the end of the sentence last set down in the extract above
+given.</p>
+
+<p>Returning the sheet he said: "I suppose you have written this after
+giving the matter full consideration, daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never act without knowing what I am doing, Uncle Carter."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my child, I think you are wrong, but I shall not ask you to do
+anything which your conscience condemns. I shall not ask you to withhold
+your letter, or to alter it, but I would prefer that you hold it until
+to-morrow, so that you may be quite sure you want to send it as it is.
+Will you mind doing that?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Uncle Carter. I will keep it till to-morrow, if you wish, but I
+shall not change my mind concerning it. You are very good to me. Thank
+you;" and kissing his forehead, she left him, not to return to her room
+as a more sentimental woman would have done, but to go about her daily
+duties, with a sober face, it is true, but with all her accustomed
+regularity and attention to business.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>In which Miss Sudie Adopts the Socratic Method.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>When Miss Sudie left him Col. Barksdale again sent for his son and told
+him of that young woman's unreasonable determination.</p>
+
+<p>"I expected that, father, and am not at all surprised," said the young
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, my son? Had you talked the matter over with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. But I know Sudie too well to expect her to give up her faith in Bob
+while he is under a cloud and in trouble too. She has a mighty good head
+on her shoulders; but what's a woman's head worth when her heart pulls
+the other way? She overrides her own reason as coolly as if it were
+worth just nothing at all, and puts everybody else's out of the way with
+the utmost indifference. I know her of old. She used to take my part
+that way whenever I got into a boyish scrape, and before she had done
+with it she always convinced me, along with everybody else, that I had
+done nothing to be ashamed of. The fact is, father, I like that in
+Sudie. She's the truest little woman I ever saw, and she sticks to her
+friends like mutton gravy to the roof of your mouth," said Billy,
+unable, even at such a time as this, to restrain his passion for strange
+metaphors.</p>
+
+<p>"The trait is a noble one, certainly," said the old gentleman; "but for
+that very reason, if for no other, we must do what we can to keep her
+from sacrificing herself to a noble faith in an unworthy man. Don't you
+think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt. But what can we do? You say you do not feel free to
+control her."</p>
+
+<p>"We can at least do our duty. I have talked with her, and now I want you
+to do the same. She will not shun the conversation, I think, for she is
+a brave girl."</p>
+
+<p>"I will see what I can do, father," said the young man. "Possibly I may
+persuade her to let the matter rest where it is, for the present at
+least, and even that will be something gained."</p>
+
+<p>Col. Barksdale was right in thinking that Miss Sudie would not seek to
+avoid a conversation with Billy. On the contrary she wished especially
+to say something to this young gentleman, and for that very purpose she
+sought him in the office. He and she had been brought up as brother and
+sister, and there was no feeling of restraint between them now that they
+were grown man and woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Billy," she said, sitting down near him, "I want to talk with
+you about Robert. I want to remind you, if you will let me, of your duty
+to him."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you conceive my duty to be in the case, Sudie?" asked Billy.</p>
+
+<p>"To defend him," said Miss Sudie.</p>
+
+<p>"But how can I do that, Sudie, in face of the facts?"</p>
+
+<p>"You believe then that Robert Pagebrook, whom you know thoroughly, has
+done the dishonorable things laid to his charge?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Billy, feeling himself hardly prepared for this kind of
+attack, "I confess I should never have thought him capable of doing such
+things."</p>
+
+<p>"Why would you never have thought him capable of doing them, Cousin
+Billy?"</p>
+
+<p>"O well, because he always seemed to be such an honorable fellow," said
+Billy.</p>
+
+<p>"You did believe him honorable, then?" asked this young female Socrates.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly; you know that Sudie."</p>
+
+<p>"On what did you base that belief, Cousin Billy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, on his way of doing things, on my knowledge of him, of course;"
+replied Billy.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, is that knowledge of him of no value now?" asked Sudie.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean does your knowledge of Robert weigh nothing now? Are you ready
+to believe on imperfect evidence, that Robert Pagebrook, who you know
+was an honorable man, is not now an honorable man? Doesn't his character
+weigh anything with you? Do you believe his character has changed, or do
+you think it possible that he simulated that character and did it so
+perfectly as to deceive us all? Doesn't it seem more probable that there
+is some mistake about this business? In short, how can you believe
+Robert guilty of a thing which you know very well he wouldn't do for
+his head? If you 'wouldn't have believed it,' why do you believe it?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Billy was stunned. He had been prepared for tears. He had expected
+to find in Sudie an unreasoning faith. He had looked for an obstinate
+determination on her part to adhere to her purpose. But for this kind of
+illogical logic he had made no preparation whatever. It had never
+entered his head that Miss Sudie would seriously undertake to argue the
+matter. The evidence against Robert he had accepted as unquestionable,
+and he had not expected Miss Sudie to question it in this way.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Cousin Sudie, you overlook the fact that Robert has confessed the
+very thing which you say is unlikely."</p>
+
+<p>"No; he has not confessed anything of the sort. Indeed he seems to have
+carefully avoided doing so. In his letter to Uncle Carter he merely
+says, 'I can offer neither denial nor explanation of the facts alleged
+against me.' To me he only says, 'a stain is upon my name.' He nowhere
+says, 'I am guilty.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Sudie," said Billy, "if he a'n't guilty, why can't he offer either
+'denial or explanation'?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I do not know; but I don't find it half as hard to believe that
+there may be good reasons for that, as to believe that an honorable
+man&mdash;a man whom we both know to be an honorable one&mdash;has done a
+dishonorable thing."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Sudie, why didn't Bob borrow the money of father or of me, if he
+honestly couldn't pay? He knew we would gladly lend it to him."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad you mentioned that. If Robert had wanted to swindle anybody,
+how much easier it would have been for him to write to you or Uncle
+Carter, saying he couldn't pay and asking you to take up his protested
+draft for him. He knew you would have done it, and he could then have
+accomplished his purpose without any exposure. Almost any excuse would
+have satisfied you or Uncle Carter, and so the thing would have gone on
+for years. Wouldn't he have done exactly that, Cousin Billy, if he had
+wanted to swindle anybody? Men don't often covet a bad name for its own
+sake."</p>
+
+<p>"Clearly, Sudie, I am getting the worst of this argument. You are a
+better sophist than I ever gave you credit for being. But it's hard to
+believe that black is white. I'll tell you what I'll do, though, Sudie.
+I'll do my very best to believe that there is some sort of faint
+possibility that facts a'n't facts, and hold myself, as nearly as I can,
+in readiness to believe that something may turn up in Bob's favor. If
+anything were to turn up I'd be as glad of it as anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"But I'm not satisfied with that, Cousin Billy."</p>
+
+<p>"What more do you ask, Sudie?"</p>
+
+<p>"That you shall hold yourself in readiness to help turn something up
+whenever an opportunity offers. Keep a sharp lookout for things which
+may possibly have a bearing upon this matter, and follow up any clue you
+may get. Won't you do that for my sake, Cousin Billy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd do anything for your sake, Sudie, and I'd give a hundred dollars
+for your faith."</p>
+
+<p>And so ended the conversation. Mr. Billy, it must be confessed, had
+done little toward the accomplishment of the task he had set himself.
+But as he himself put it: "What on earth was a fellow to do with a faith
+which made incontestable truths out of impossibilities, and scattered
+facts before it like a flock of partridges?" Mr. Billy fully appreciated
+the unreasonableness of Miss Sudie's logic, and yet, in spite of all, he
+could not help entertaining a sort of half hope that something would
+occur to vindicate Robert&mdash;a hope born of nothing more substantial than
+Miss Sudie's enthusiastic belief in her lover.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook Accepts an Invitation to Lunch and another Invitation.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>On the morning after Robert's incarceration, his attorney came at the
+appointed hour for the purpose of preparing the papers on which
+application was to be made for his discharge.</p>
+
+<p>"I have the affidavits all ready, I believe, Mr. Pagebrook, and we have
+only to make a complete list of your property."</p>
+
+<p>"That will be easily done, sir," said Robert, with a feeling of grim
+amusement; "as I have literally nothing except my trunk and its
+contents."</p>
+
+<p>"You have your claim on that bank for money deposited. I suppose that
+must be included, though it is only a <i>chose</i> in action."</p>
+
+<p>"O put it in, by all means," said Robert. "I do not wish to misrepresent
+anything or to withhold anything. I only wish the <i>chose</i> in action, as
+you call it, were of sufficient value to discharge the debt. I should
+then quit here free from all indebtedness, except to you for your fee;
+and should not have this thing to pay.'</p>
+
+<p>"Your discharge, I think, will free you, in law, from&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But it will not free me in honor sir. It will give me time, however;
+and the very first use I shall make of that time will be to earn the
+money with which to pay off this, my only debt. I should never ask a
+discharge at all if the asking supposed any purpose on my part to avoid
+the payment of the debt. Pardon me; this talk must sound odd to you,
+coming from a man in my present position. I forgot that I am an
+absconding debtor. You will think my talk a cheap kind of honesty,
+costing nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Pagebrook&mdash;if you will allow me to drop the 'Mister'&mdash;I should
+trust you in any transaction, though I have not known you a week. I
+don't believe you are an absconding debtor, and I'm not going to believe
+it on the strength of any oaths Messrs. Steel, Flint &amp; Sharp may make."
+As he said this the young lawyer took Robert's hand, and Robert found
+himself wholly unable to utter a word by way of reply. He did not want
+to shed tears in the presence of his jail attendants, but the lawyer saw
+them standing in his eyes, and prevented any effort at replying by
+turning at once to the matter in hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Pagebrook," he said, "this isn't business. Let me see; what bank
+was it that you deposited with?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Essex," said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"The Essex!" said the lawyer. "What was that I saw in the Tribune this
+morning about that bank? I think it was the Essex. Let me see;" running
+his eye over the columns of the newspaper, which he had taken from his
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! here it is. By George! My dear Pagebrook, I congratulate you. Your
+bank has resumed. See, here is the item:</p>
+
+<p>"'<span class="smcap">Philadelphia, Dec. 3D.</span>&mdash;The Essex Bank, of this city, which suspended
+payment some weeks since, will resume business to-morrow. Its affairs
+were found to be in a very favorable condition, and at a meeting of the
+stockholders, held to-day, the deficit in its assets was covered, and
+its capital made good by subscription. It is not thought that any run
+will be made upon it, but ample preparations have been made to meet such
+a contingency.'</p>
+
+<p>"Again I congratulate you, right heartily."</p>
+
+<p>"This means then, that my sixteen hundred dollars&mdash;that was the total
+amount of my deposit&mdash;is intact, and that I may check against it as soon
+as I choose, does it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"Then let us suspend our preparations for securing my release. I will
+pay out of this instead of begging out. I will draw at once for enough
+to cover this debt and your fees, and ask you to put the draft into bank
+for collection. We will have returns by the day after to-morrow,
+doubtless, and I shall then go out of here with my head up."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll end this business sooner than that, Pagebrook," said the lawyer.
+"Draw your draft, I'll indorse it, take it to the bank where I deposit,
+get it cashed at once, and have you out of here in time for a two
+o'clock lunch. You'll lunch with me, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, but you have no means of knowing that I have any money in
+that bank," said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed I have."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your word. I told you I would trust you."</p>
+
+<p>Robert looked at the man a moment, and then taking his hand, said:</p>
+
+<p>"I accept your confidence frankly. Thank you. Draw the draft, please,
+and I will sign it."</p>
+
+<p>The draft was soon drawn, and at two o'clock that day&mdash;just twenty-four
+hours after his arrest&mdash;Robert sat down to lunch with his friend, in a
+down-town eating-house.</p>
+
+<p>While the two gentlemen were engaged with their lunch, Robert's friend
+Dudley, who had been eating a chop at the farther end of the room,
+espied his acquaintance, and approaching him said:</p>
+
+<p>"How are you, Pagebrook? Are you specially engaged for this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I believe not," said Robert. "I have nothing to do except to finish
+an article which I want to offer you to-morrow, and I can do that
+to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose you come up to the office, then, after you finish your lunch. I
+want to talk with you."</p>
+
+<p>"I will be there within half an hour, if that will suit you," said
+Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well; I'll expect you."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, Robert bade his friend adieu after lunch, and went
+immediately to the editor's room.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Dudley closed the door, first saying to his messenger, who sat in
+the anteroom;</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be busy for some time, Eddie, and can't see anybody. If any
+one calls, tell him I am closeted with a gentleman on important business
+and can see nobody. Now, Pagebrook," he resumed, taking his seat, "you
+ought to quit teaching."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" asked Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you're a born writer certainly, and if I am not greatly mistaken,
+a born journalist too. You have a knack of knowing just what points
+people want to hear about. I've been struck with that in every article
+you have written for me, and especially in this last one. Do you know
+I've rejected no less than a dozen well-written articles on that very
+subject, just because they treated every phase of it except the right
+one, and didn't come within a mile of that. Now you've hit it exactly,
+as you always do. You've got hold of precisely the things that nobody
+knows anything about and everybody wants to know all about, and that's
+journalism."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Robert. "You really think, then, that I might make
+myself a successful journalist if I were to try?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know you would. You have precisely the right sort of ideas. You
+discriminate between the things that are wanted and the things that are
+not. I have long since discovered that this thing that men call writing
+ability and journalistic ability isn't like anything else. It crops out
+where you would never look for it, and where you think it ought to be it
+isn't. You can't coax or nurse it into existence to save your life. If a
+man has it he has it, and if he hasn't it he hasn't it, and nobody can
+give it to him. It isn't contagious, and I honestly believe it isn't
+acquirable. And that's why I'm certain of you. You've shown that you
+have it, and one showing is as good as a hundred."</p>
+
+<p>"I am greatly pleased," said Robert, "to know that you think so well of
+me in this respect, for I have resigned my professorship and determined
+to make my way, to the best of my ability, as a journalist, hereafter?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I sent my letter of resignation yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm heartily glad of it, old fellow, and selfishly glad, too, for it
+was to persuade you to do that that I sat down to talk to you. You see
+my health is not very good lately; the fact is I have been using the
+spur too much, and am pretty well run down with overwork. The publishers
+have been urging me to get an assistant, and the trouble is to get one
+who can really relieve me of a share of the work. I can get plenty of
+people to undertake it, but I have to go over their work to be sure of
+it, and it's easier to do it myself from the first. Now you are just the
+man I want, if you can stand the salary. The publishers will let me pay
+forty dollars a week. You can make more than that from the outside, I
+suppose, but it's better to be in a regular situation, I think. How
+would you like to try the thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing could be more to my taste. I think I should like this better
+than daily paper work, and besides it gives one a better opportunity for
+growth. But before we talk any more about it I feel myself in honor
+bound to tell you what has happened to me lately. If you care then to
+repeat your offer, I shall gladly accept it, but if you feel the
+slightest hesitation about it, I shall not blame you for not renewing
+it."</p>
+
+<p>And Robert told him everything, but Dudley declined to believe that
+there had been any just cause for the arrest, or that Robert had in any
+way violated the strictest canons of honor.</p>
+
+<p>This young man seemed, indeed, to be perfect master of the art of making
+people believe in him in spite of the most damaging facts. Miss Sudie's
+faith in him never wavered for an instant. Even Billy had to keep a
+synopsis of the evidence against his cousin constantly in mind to keep
+himself from "believing that he couldn't see through glass," as he
+phrased it. The New York lawyer, summoned to get the young man out of
+jail, backed his faith in him, as we have seen, by indorsing his draft
+for several hundred dollars; and now Dudley, after hearing a plain
+statement of the facts from Robert's own lips, dismissed them as of no
+consequence, and set up his own unreasonable faith as a complete answer
+to them. He renewed his offer, and Robert accepted it, becoming office
+editor of the weekly paper for which he had recently been writing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Major Pagebrook asserts himself.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>It now becomes necessary to a proper understanding of this history that
+we shall go back a day or two, to the day, in fact, on which Robert's
+letters were received at Shirley. I said there were three New York
+letters in the mail-bag thrown off at the Court House that morning. The
+third letter there referred to was from the law firm of Steel, Flint &amp;
+Sharp. It was addressed to Edwin Pagebrook, Esq., and quite by accident
+it fell into that gentleman's hands. I say by accident, because Cousin
+Sarah Ann had taken unusual precautions to prevent precisely this
+result. After writing to the lawyers, it occurred to that estimable lady
+that a reply would come in due time, and that as she had taken the
+liberty of signing her husband's name to her letter, the reply would be
+addressed to him rather than to her, and she greatly feared that he
+would have an opportunity to read it. She particularly wished that this
+should not happen. She knew her mild-mannered and long-suffering husband
+thoroughly, and, while she felt free to torment him in various ways, she
+had learned, from one or two bits of experience, that it was not the
+part of wisdom to tax his endurance too far. Accordingly she took pains
+to prevent him from visiting the Court House while she was expecting the
+letter. She laid various plans for the purpose of keeping him occupied
+on the plantation every day, and took care to secure the first look into
+the family postbag whenever the servant returned with it. On the morning
+in question, however, as Maj. Pagebrook was riding over his plantation,
+inspecting work, he met a neighbor who was going to the Court House, and
+having some small matters to attend to there he determined to join the
+neighbor in his ride. Upon his arrival he called for his letters, and so
+it came about that the note in which Messrs. Steel, Flint &amp; Sharp,
+"begged to inform him" of Robert's arrest in accordance with his
+instructions, fell into his hands. At first he was puzzled, and thought
+there must have been some mistake, but after awhile a glimmering of the
+truth dawned upon him, and in his smothered way he was exceedingly
+angry. He had condemned Robert's misconduct as severely as anybody, but
+had never dreamed of proceeding to harsh measures in the matter.
+Besides, it was only the day before that Robert's remittance of one
+hundred dollars had come to him, and, in acknowledging its receipt, he
+had partially satisfied his resentment by telling his cousin "what he
+thought of him," and to learn now that the young man was in jail for the
+fault, and apparently at his behest, was sorely displeasing to him. And
+worse than all, his wife had taken an unwarrantable liberty in the
+affair, and this he determined to resent. He mounted his horse,
+therefore, and was on the point of starting homeward when Dr. Harrison
+accosted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, Maj. Pagebrook. May I speak to you a moment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, Charles."</p>
+
+<p>"Has there been any administrator appointed for Ewing's estate?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not yet. I reckon I must take out papers next court day, as he was
+of age when he died. It's only a matter of form, I reckon, as there are
+no debts."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my only reason for asking is I hold Ewing's note for two hundred
+and twenty-five dollars. I'm in no hurry, only I wanted to act regularly
+and get it in shape by presenting it."</p>
+
+<p>"You have Ewing's note? Why, what is it for?" asked Major Pagebrook in
+astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Borrowed money," answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Borrowed money? But how did he come to borrow it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the fact is Ewing got to playing bluff with Foggy one day just
+before he got sick, and Foggy fleeced him pretty badly, and I lent him
+the money to pay out with. He didn't want to owe it to Foggy, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you the note with you?" asked Maj. Pagebrook.</p>
+
+<p>"No. It's in my office; but I can get it if you'd like to look at it."</p>
+
+<p>"No; it's no matter, if you can tell me the date."</p>
+
+<p>"It bears date November 19th, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Just one day after he came of age," said Maj. Pagebrook. "Well, I'll
+see about it, Charles," and with this the two gentlemen separated.</p>
+
+<p>Major Pagebrook rode homeward, meditating upon the occurrences of the
+morning. He had determined to manage his own business hereafter without
+tolerating improper interference upon the part of his wife, and he was
+in position to do this, too, except with regard to the home plantation,
+which, as Ewing had informed Robert, was held in Cousin Sarah Ann's
+name. Major Pagebrook was a quiet man and a long-suffering one. He liked
+nothing so much as peace, and to keep the peace he had always yielded to
+the more aggressive nature of his wife. But he felt now that the time
+had come for him to assert his supremacy in business matters, and he
+determined to assert it very quietly but very positively. One point was
+as good as another, he thought, for the purpose, and this
+newly-discovered debt of Ewing's gave him an excellent occasion for the
+self-assertion upon which he had resolved. Several times of late he had
+mildly suggested to Cousin Sarah Ann the propriety of putting Ewing's
+papers into Billy Barksdale's hands for examination, so that the boy's
+affairs might be properly and legally adjusted. To every such suggestion
+Cousin Sarah Ann, who carried the key of Ewing's portable desk, had
+turned a deaf ear, saying that there were no debts one way or the other,
+and that she "wouldn't have anybody overhauling the poor boy's private
+papers." Now, however, Major Pagebrook had made up his mind to put the
+desk into Billy's hands without asking the excellent lady's consent.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't take my horse, Jim," he said to his servant upon arriving at
+home, "I am going to ride again presently. Just tie him to the rack till
+I want him."</p>
+
+<p>Going into the house, he met Cousin Sarah Ann, to whom he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Sarah Ann, I will write my own letters and attend to my own business
+hereafter, and I'll thank you not to sign my name for me again. You have
+placed me in a very awkward position, and I can't explain it to anybody
+without exposing you. Understand me now, please. I will not tolerate any
+such interference in future."</p>
+
+<p>Ordinarily Cousin Sarah Ann would have been ready enough with a reply to
+such a remark as this, but just now she was fairly frightened by her
+husband's tone and manner. She saw at a glance that he was in very
+serious earnest, and she knew him well enough to know that it would not
+do to provoke him further. She was always afraid of him, even when she
+was riding rough-shod over him. When he seemed most submissive and she
+most aggressive, she was in the habit of scanning his countenance very
+carefully, as an engineer watches his steam gauge. When she saw steam
+rising, she usually had the safety valve&mdash;a flood of tears&mdash;ready for
+immediate use. Just now she saw indications of an explosion, which
+appalled her, and she dared not face the danger for a moment. Without
+reply, therefore, she sank, weeping, into the nearest chair, while her
+husband walked into her room, opened her wardrobe, and took from it the
+little desk in which his son's letters and papers were locked. Coming
+back to her he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I will take the key to this desk, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>She looked up with a frightened countenance, and asked:</p>
+
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to open the desk."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to put it into my lawyer's hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait then. I must look over the papers first."</p>
+
+<p>"No; Billy will do that."</p>
+
+<p>"But there's some of mine in it, private ones."</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't matter. Billy will sort them and return yours to you."</p>
+
+<p>"But he <i>sha'n't</i> look at my papers."</p>
+
+<p>"Give me the key, Sarah Ann."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't. It's lost."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then," said he, taking his knife from his pocket, breaking
+the frail lock, and walking out of the house without another word.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus8" id="illus8"></a>
+<img src="images/illus8.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"VERY WELL, THEN."</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>Cousin Sarah Ann was thoroughly overcome. She knew that her husband had
+received the reply to her letter, which she had meant to receive
+herself, and she knew too that her mastery over him was at an end, for
+the present at least. Worse than all, she knew that the desk and its
+contents would inevitably go into Billy Barksdale's hands, and she had
+her own reasons for thinking this the sorest affliction possible to her.
+There was no help for it now, however, and she could do nothing except
+throw herself on her bed and shed tears of bitter mortification,
+vexation, and dread.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Major Pagebrook galloped over to Shirley, with the desk under
+his arm. The conversation already reported between Billy and Miss Sudie,
+was hardly more than finished when he dismounted and walked into the
+young lawyer's office.</p>
+
+<p>He opened his business by telling Billy about the note held by Dr.
+Harrison.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand it," he said. "Harrison says the note is dated
+November 19th, which was just one day after Ewing came of age, and I
+remember that Ewing was taken sick on the morning of his birthday&mdash;very
+sick, as you know, and never left his bed afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"When was Ewing at the Court House last?" asked Billy.</p>
+
+<p>"Not since the day Robert left."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he owe Harrison any money that you know of?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but Harrison says Foggy won that much from him, and he had to
+borrow to pay it."</p>
+
+<p>"You are sure, however, that Ewing could not possibly have had a chance
+to sign the note after he came of age?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he couldn't. He was delirious from the very first, and we
+never left him."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I see how it is," said Billy. "Foggy and Charley Harrison are
+too intimate for any straight dealings. I reckon Charley was as deeply
+interested in the winnings as Foggy was, but they have made Ewing
+execute the note to Charley for money borrowed to pay Foggy with so that
+it would be legally good. They made him date it ahead, too, so that it
+would appear to have been executed after Ewing came of age. They didn't
+anticipate his sickness, and they haven't thought to compare dates. I
+think we can beat them this time, when they get ready to sue."</p>
+
+<p>"But we mustn't let them sue, Billy," said Major Pagebrook. "I would
+never consent to plead the baby act or to get out of it by any legal
+quibble if the signature is genuine, as I reckon it is. That wouldn't be
+honorable. No, I shall pay the note off; and I only want to know whether
+I must charge it to Ewing's estate or not, after taking out
+administration papers. If I can, I ought to, in justice to the other
+children. If I can't, I must pay it myself. Look into it, please, and
+let me know about it. I have brought you Ewing's desk, so you can look
+over all his papers and attend to all his affairs for me. I want to get
+everything straight." So saying he took his leave.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. Barksdale, the Younger, Goes upon a Journey.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Not until the next morning did Mr. Billy find time to examine the papers
+in Ewing's desk. Indeed, even then he deemed the matter one of very
+little consequence, inasmuch as the papers, whatever they might happen
+to be, were probably of no legal importance, being of necessity the work
+of a minor. There might be memoranda there, however, and possibly a will
+disposing of personal property, which, under the law of Virginia, would
+be good if executed by a minor over eighteen years of age.</p>
+
+<p>In view of these possibilities, therefore, Billy sat down to the task of
+examining the papers, which were pretty numerous, such as they were.
+After awhile he became interested in the very miscellaneousness of the
+assortment. Little memoranda were there&mdash;of the date on which a horse
+had been shod; of the amount paid for a new pair of boots; of the times
+at which the boy had written letters to his friends, and of a hundred
+other unimportant things. There were bits of poor verse, too, such as
+may be found in the desk of almost every boy. Old letters, full of
+nothing, were there in abundance, but nothing which could possibly be of
+any value to anybody. On all the letters, except one, was marked, in
+Ewing's handwriting, "To be burned without reading, in case of my
+death." The one exception attracted Billy's attention, and opening it,
+he was surprised to find Robert Pagebrook's name appended to it. It was,
+in fact, the letter which Cousin Sarah Ann had opened during her son's
+last illness. After reading it Mr. Billy sat down to think. Presently,
+looking at his watch, he went to the door and called a servant.</p>
+
+<p>"Go and ask your Miss Sudie to put two or three shirts, and some socks
+and handkerchiefs into my satchel for me, and then you go and tell
+Polidore to saddle Graybeard and the bay, and get ready to go with me to
+the Court House directly. Do you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>The servant made no answer to the question with which Mr. Billy closed
+his speech. Indeed that gentleman expected none. Virginians always ask
+"do you hear?" when they give instructions to servants, and they never
+get or expect an answer. Without the question, however, they would never
+secure attention to the instruction. To say, "do so and so," without
+adding, "do you hear?" would be the idlest possible waste of words on
+the part of any one giving an order to the average Virginian house
+servant.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Billy was in the habit of making sudden journeys on business,
+without giving the slightest warning to the family except that contained
+in a request that his satchel or saddle-bags be packed, so that Miss
+Sudie was not in the least surprised when his present message came to
+her. She was surprised, however, when, instead of riding away without a
+word of farewell, as he usually did, he came into the house, and,
+kissing her tenderly, said:</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your spirits up, Sudie, and don't let things worry you too much.
+I'm going to Richmond on the two o'clock train, and don't know how long
+I'll be gone. Good-by, little girl," and he kissed her again. All this
+was quite out of character, Miss Sudie felt. Billy was affectionate
+enough, at all times, but he detested leave-takings, and always avoided
+them when he could. To seek one was quite unlike him, and Miss Sudie was
+puzzled to know what prompted him to do it on this particular occasion.
+He rode away, however, without offering any explanation whatever.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Billy went to Richmond, as he had said he intended doing, but he did
+not remain there an hour. He went to the cashier of a bank, a gentleman
+with whom he was well acquainted, got from him a letter of introduction
+to a prominent man in Philadelphia, and left for that city on the first
+train.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving in Philadelphia about nine o'clock the next day, Mr. Billy ate
+a hasty breakfast and proceeded to the little collegiate institute in
+which Robert had once been a professor, as the reader will remember.
+Introducing himself to President Currier he asked for a private
+interview, and was invited for the purpose into Dr. Currier's inner
+office.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe, doctor," he said, after telling that gentleman who he was,
+"that there was something due Professor Pagebrook on his salary at the
+time his connection with this college terminated, was there not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; there was about three hundred dollars due him, if I remember
+correctly, but it has been paid, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any way of ascertaining precisely how and when?" asked Billy.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; my own letter-book should show. Let me see," turning over the
+leaves, "Ah, here it is. A draft for the amount was sent to him by
+letter on the eighth of November, addressed to &mdash;&mdash; Court House,
+Virginia."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Billy. "The draft, I suppose, was regular New York
+Exchange?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you mind telling me from what bank you bought it, and to whose
+order, in the first place, it was made payable? Pardon my asking such
+questions, but I need this information for use in the cause of justice."</p>
+
+<p>"O you need offer no apology, I assure you, sir," returned the
+president. "I have nothing to conceal in the matter. The draft was drawn
+by the Susquehanna Bank, and to my order, I think. Yes, I remember
+indorsing it."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir," said Billy. "You are very courteous, and I am indebted
+to you for information which I should have found it difficult to get
+from any other source. Good morning, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the college, which was situated in one of the suburbs, Mr. Billy
+took a carriage and drove into the city. There he delivered his letter
+of introduction, and secured from the gentleman to whom it was
+addressed a personal introduction to the cashier of the Susquehanna
+Bank. To this latter person he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I am looking up evidence in a case, and, if I am not greatly mistaken,
+you can help me in an effort to set a wrong right. On the eighth of last
+month you sold a draft on New York for three hundred dollars, payable to
+the order of David Currier. Now, in the ordinary course of business I
+suppose that draft has been returned to you after payment."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if it was paid before the first of the month. We settle with our
+New York correspondents once a month. I'll look at the last batch of
+returned checks and see."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. I should be glad to see the indorsements on the paper, if
+possible."</p>
+
+<p>The cashier went to the vault, and returning with a large bundle of
+canceled checks soon found the one wanted. Billy turned it over and
+examined the indorsements on the back. Then, turning to the banker, he
+asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Would it be possible for me to get temporary possession of this draft
+by depositing the amount of its face with you until its return?"</p>
+
+<p>"You merely wish it for use in evidence?" asked the banker.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all," said Billy.</p>
+
+<p>"You can take it, then, without a deposit, Mr. Barksdale. It is of no
+value now, but we usually keep our canceled exchange, so I shall be
+obliged if you will return this when you've done with it."</p>
+
+<p>This was precisely what Robert had come to Philadelphia to secure, and
+after finding what the indorsements on the draft were, he would
+willingly have paid its face outright, if that had been necessary, to
+get possession of it.</p>
+
+<p>Who knows what the value of a bit of writing may be, even after its
+purpose has to all appearance been fully answered? I know a great
+commercial house in which it is an inexorable law that no bit of paper
+once written on in the way of business shall ever be destroyed, however
+valueless it may seem to be; and on more than one occasion the wisdom of
+the rule has been strikingly made manifest. So it was with this paid,
+canceled, and returned draft. Worthless in all eyes but his, to Billy it
+was far more precious than if it had been crisp and new, and payable to
+his own order.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>The younger Mr. Barksdale Asks to be put upon His Oath.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>It was nearly noon when the train which brought Billy Barksdale back
+from Philadelphia stopped at the Court House, and that young gentleman
+went from the station immediately to the court room, where the Circuit
+Court, as he knew, was in session.</p>
+
+<p>"Has the grand jury been impaneled yet?" he asked the commonwealth's
+attorney.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; it has just gone out, but as usual there is nothing for it to do,
+so it will report 'no bills' in an hour or so, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>"Have me sworn and sent before it then," said Billy. "I think I can put
+it in the way of finding something to do."</p>
+
+<p>The official was astonished, but he lost no time in complying with the
+rather singular request. Billy went before the grand jury, and remained
+there for a considerable time. This was a very unusual occurrence in
+every way, and it quickly produced a buzz of excitement in and about the
+building. There was rarely ever anything for grand juries to do in this
+quiet county, and when there was anything it usually hinged upon some
+publicly known and talked of matter. Everybody knew in advance what it
+was about, and the probable result was easy to predict. Now, however,
+all was mystery. A prominent young lawyer had been sworn and sent before
+the grand jury at his own request, and the length of time during which
+he was detained there effectually dispelled the belief which at first
+obtained, that he merely wanted to secure the presentment of some
+negligent road overseer. Even the commonwealth's attorney could not
+manage to look wise enough, as he sat there stroking his beard, to
+deceive anybody into the belief that he knew what was going on. The
+minutes were very long ones. The excitement soon extended beyond the
+court house, and everybody in the village was on tiptoe with suppressed
+curiosity. The court room was full to overflowing when Billy came
+quietly out of the grand jury's apartment and took his seat in the bar
+as if nothing out of the ordinary course of affairs had happened.</p>
+
+<p>It did not tend to allay the excitement, certainly, when the deputy
+sheriff on duty at the door of the jury room beckoned to the
+commonwealth's attorney and that gentleman went up-stairs three steps at
+a time, disappearing within the chamber devoted to the secret inquest
+and remaining there. When half an hour later Major Edwin Pagebrook was
+called, sworn and sent up as a witness, wild rumors of a secret crime
+among the better classes began to circulate freely in the crowd,
+starting from nowhere and gradually taking definite shape as they spread
+from one to another of the eager villagers.</p>
+
+<p>The excitement was now absolutely painful in its intensity, and even the
+judge himself began walking restlessly back and forth in the space set
+apart for the bench.</p>
+
+<p>When Major Pagebrook came out of the room with a downcast face he went
+immediately home, and Rosenwater, a merchant in the village, was called.
+When he came out, distinct efforts were made to worm the secret from
+him. He was mindful of his oath, however, and refused to say anything.</p>
+
+<p>Finally the members of the grand jury marched slowly down stairs, and
+took their stand in front of the clerk's desk.</p>
+
+<p>"Poll the grand jury," said the judge. When that ceremony was over, the
+question which everybody in the building had been mentally asking for
+hours was formulated by the court.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen of the grand jury, have you any presentments to make?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have, your honor," answered the foreman.</p>
+
+<p>"Read the report of the grand jury, Mr. Clerk."</p>
+
+<p>The official rose and after adjusting his spectacles very deliberately,
+read aloud:</p>
+
+<p>"We, the grand jury, on our oaths present Dr. Charles Harrison and James
+Madison Raves, for forgery and for a conspiracy to defraud Edwin
+Pagebrook, on or about the tenth day of November in this present year
+within the jurisdiction of this honorable court."</p>
+
+<p>The crowd was fairly stunned. Nobody knew or could guess what it meant.
+The commonwealth's attorney was the first to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"As the legal representative of the commonwealth, I move the court to
+issue a warrant for the arrest of Charles Harrison and James Madison
+Raves, and I ask that the grand jury be instructed to return to their
+room and to put their indictments in proper form."</p>
+
+<p>The two men thus accused of crime being present in court were taken in
+charge by the sheriff.</p>
+
+<p>"If the commonwealth's attorney has no further motions to make in this
+case," said the judge, "the court will take a recess, in order to give
+time for the preparation of indictments in due form."</p>
+
+<p>"May it please the court," said the official addressed, "I have only to
+ask that your honor will instruct the sheriff to separate the two
+prisoners during the recess. I do not know that this is necessary, but
+it may tend to further the interests of justice."</p>
+
+<p>"The court sees no reason to refuse the request," said the judge. "Mr.
+Sheriff, you will see that your two prisoners are not allowed to confer
+together in any way until after the reassembling of the court, at four
+o'clock."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Mr. William Barksdale Explains.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Precisely what Dr. Harrison's emotions were when he found himself in the
+sheriff's hands, nobody is likely ever to know, as that gentleman was
+always of taciturn mood in matters closely concerning himself, and on
+the present occasion was literally dumb.</p>
+
+<p>With Foggy the case was different. He was always a prudent man. He was
+not given to the taking of unnecessary risks for the sake of abstract
+principles. He made no pretensions to the possession of heroic fortitude
+under affliction, and he had no special reputation for high-toned honor
+to lose. The clutch of the law was to him an uncomfortable one, and he
+was prepared to escape it by any route which might happen to be open to
+him. This disposition upon his part was an important factor in the
+problem which Billy had set out to solve. He knew Foggy was a moral
+coward, and upon his cowardice he depended, in part, for the success of
+his undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as court adjourned the commonwealth's attorney requested the
+members of the grand jury to make themselves as comfortable as might be
+while he should be engaged in the preparation of formal indictments
+against the two prisoners. Going then to his office he closeted himself
+with Billy Barksdale, who had preceded him thither by his request.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll help me with this prosecution, won't you Billy?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"With as good a will as I ever carried to a fish fry," said Billy.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," said the attorney, "tell me just how the thing stands. I
+confess I'm all in a jumble about it. Begin at the beginning and tell
+the whole story. Then we'll know where we stand and how to proceed."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly Billy recounted the history of the protested draft; the
+promise to pay; its nonfulfillment and the trouble which ensued. He then
+continued:</p>
+
+<p>"My suspicions as to the real facts of the case were aroused by
+accident. Maj. Pagebrook consulted me a few days ago about a note signed
+by Ewing Pagebrook, drawn in favor of Charley Harrison, which, Harrison
+said, had been given him when he advanced money to Ewing with which to
+pay a gambling debt to Foggy. That note was evidently dated ahead, as it
+bore date of November 19th, one day after Ewing attained his majority,
+when, in fact, the boy was taken ill on the morning of his twenty-first
+birthday, and never left his bed afterwards. This confirmed me in the
+belief that Foggy and Harrison were confederates in their gambling
+operations. They fleeced the boy, and then had him borrow the money with
+which to pay from Harrison, and give a note for it, so as to make the
+consideration good; and they took pains to have him date it ahead, so as
+to get rid of the minority trouble. This by itself would have amounted
+to nothing, but in looking over Ewing's papers I found a letter there
+from Bob Pagebrook, which I happened accidentally to know was received
+during Ewing's illness. Here it is. I'll read it.</p>
+
+<p>"'<span class="smcap">My Dear Ewing</span>:&mdash;I can not tell you how grieved I am at the news your
+letter brings me. I can ill afford to lose the three hundred dollars
+which I intrusted to you to hand to your father, and even if you do make
+it good when you come of age, as you so solemnly promise me you will, I
+am, meanwhile, placed in a very awkward position with regard to it. I
+promised your father to pay him that money by a certain day, and was
+greatly pleased, as you know, when, upon arriving at the Court House on
+my way north, I found the remittance awaiting me there, as it enabled me
+to make the payment in advance of the time agreed upon. When I, in my
+haste to catch the train, gave you the check to give to your father, I
+dismissed the subject from my mind, and set about the work of repairing
+my fortunes with a light heart, little thinking that matters would turn
+out as they have.</p>
+
+<p>"'But while I am sorely annoyed by the fact that this may place me in an
+awkward position, I am willing to trust my reputation in your hands.
+Remember that you are now bound in honor, not merely to pay this money
+as soon as you shall attain your majority, but also to protect me from
+undeserved disgrace by frankly stating the facts of the case to your
+father in the event of his entertaining doubts of my integrity. This
+much you are in honor bound to do in any case, and you have also given
+me your word that you will do it. If your father shall seem disposed to
+think me not unduly dilatory in the matter of payment, you need tell him
+nothing. You may spare yourself that mortification, send me the money,
+and I will remit it to him, merely saying that unavoidable circumstances
+which I am not at liberty to explain have prevented the earlier payment
+which I intended to make.</p>
+
+<p>"'But in agreeing to do this, Ewing, I am moved solely by my desire to
+shield you from disgrace and consequent ruin. When I gave you that money
+for your father it was a sacred trust, and in converting it to other
+uses you not only wronged me, but you made yourself guilty of something
+very like a crime. Pardon me if I speak plainly, for I am speaking only
+for your good and I speak only to you. I want you to understand how
+terribly wrong and altogether dishonorable your act was, so that you may
+never be guilty of another such. I am not disposed to reproach you, but
+I do want to warn you. You are the son of a gentleman, and you have no
+right to bring disgrace upon your father's name. You ought not to
+gamble, and if you do gamble you have no right to surrender your honor
+in payment of your losses. I promise you, as you ask me to do, that I
+will not tell what you have done; and you know I never break a promise
+under any circumstances whatever. But in promising this I place my own
+reputation in your keeping, depending upon you, in the event of
+necessity, to frankly acknowledge your fault, so that I may not appear
+to have run away from a debt which in fact I have paid.'</p>
+
+<p>"When I read that letter," continued Billy, "I began to see daylight.
+Bob had given his word of honor to Ewing not to expose him. Ewing had
+died before he could make the money matter good, and Bob, like the
+great, big, honorable, dear old fellow that he is, allowed himself to go
+to jail and bear the reputation of an absconding debtor, rather than
+break his promise to the dead boy. He paid the money again, too. I
+suspected, of course, that Foggy and Charley Harrison were mixed up in
+the matter some way, particularly as the very last visit Ewing ever made
+to the Court House was made on the day that Bob went away. I went to
+Philadelphia, and there found the canceled draft, drawn in favor of
+David Currier; indorsed to Robert Pagebrook; and by him indorsed to
+Edwin Pagebrook. Then followed, as you know, an indorsement to James M.
+Raves, signed 'E. Pagebrook.' That, of course, was written by Ewing, who
+at the suggestion of these two men made the draft over to them&mdash;or to
+one of them&mdash;by signing his own name, which happened, when written with
+the initial only, to be the same as his father's. Foggy then indorsed it
+to Harrison, and he, being respectable, had no difficulty in getting
+Rosenwater to cash it for him. It never entered Rosenwater's head, of
+course, to question any of the signatures back of Harrison's. Now my
+theory is that this draft did not cover Ewing's losses by two hundred
+and twenty-five dollars; and so the two thrifty gentlemen made the boy
+execute the note that Harrison holds for that amount, dating it ahead,
+and making it for borrowed money."</p>
+
+<p>"You're right, Barksdale, without a doubt," said the commonwealth's
+attorney; "but how are we going to make a jury see it? There's plenty of
+evidence to found an indictment on, but I'm afraid there a'n't enough to
+secure a conviction."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," said Billy. "But we must do our very best. If we can't
+convict both, we may one; and even if we fail altogether in the
+prosecution, we will at least expose the rascals, and this county will
+be too hot for them afterwards. Foggy is always shaky in the knees, and
+if we give him half a chance will turn state's evidence. Why not sound
+him on the subject?"</p>
+
+<p>Foggy needed very little sounding indeed. At the first intimation that
+there might be hope for him if he would tell what he knew he volunteered
+a confession, which bore out Billy's theory to the letter. From his
+statement, too, it appeared that Harrison was the author of the whole
+scheme. He had overborne Ewing's scruples, and by dint of threats
+compelled him to commit a practical forgery by writing his own name in
+such a way as to make it appear to be his father's. While Foggy was at
+it he made a clean breast, telling all about his partnership with
+Harrison in the gambling operations, and admitting that the note
+Harrison held was dated ahead and given solely for a gambling debt.</p>
+
+<p>The commonwealth's attorney agreed to enter a <i>nolle prosequi</i> in
+Foggy's case, and to transfer him, at the trial, from the prisoner's box
+to the witness stand.</p>
+
+<p>When Billy came out from this conference he found Major Pagebrook
+awaiting an opportunity to speak to him. The major, it seems, after
+going home had returned to the Court House.</p>
+
+<p>"Billy," he said, "I know now about that letter from Robert to Ewing.
+Sarah Ann has told me she read it when it came. What is to be done about
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," said Billy, "except that you will of course return Robert the
+extra three hundred dollars he has paid you."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I'll do that. But I mean&mdash;the fact is I don't want that
+letter to appear on the trial. You will have to tell where you got it,
+and it will come out, in spite of everything, that Sarah Ann knew of
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Cousin Edwin, what am I to do? This has been a wretched business
+from first to last. Poor Bob has suffered severely for Ewing's fault,
+and&mdash;I must speak plainly&mdash;through Cous&mdash;through your wife's iniquity.
+Not only has he had to pay the money twice, he has been sent to jail,
+and but for a lucky accident his reputation as an honorable man would
+have been destroyed forever, and that merely to gratify your wife's
+petty and unreasonable spite against him. It became my duty to unravel
+this mystery for the sake of freeing Bob from an unjust and undeserved
+disgrace. In doing that I have accidentally stumbled upon the discovery
+of a crime, and even if it were not illegal I am not the man to compound
+a felony. For you I am heartily sorry, but your wife is only reaping
+what she has sown. I would do anything honorable to spare your feelings,
+Cousin Edwin, but I can not help giving evidence in this case. I really
+do not see, however, precisely how Bob's letter can be used as evidence.
+If it had been sufficient in itself to establish the facts to which it
+referred I should have used it to set Bob right, and the thing would
+have ended there. But Bob's statement was of course an interested one,
+and I feared that after a time, if not immediately, gossip would seize
+upon that point and say the whole thing was made up merely to clear Bob.
+I knew he would never show Ewing's letter to which his was a reply, and
+so I set myself to work hunting up the draft. I don't see how the letter
+can well come up on the trial, but if it should become necessary for me
+to tell about it, I must tell all about it, of course."</p>
+
+<p>Major Pagebrook walked away, his head bowed as if there were a heavy
+weight upon his shoulders, and Billy pitied him heartily. This woman,
+who, in her groundless malignity, had wrought so much wrong and brought
+so much of sorrow upon the good old man, was his wife, and he could not
+free himself from the fact or its consequences. He had never willingly
+done a wrong in his life, and it seemed peculiarly hard that he should
+now have to suffer so sorely for the sins of the woman whom he called
+wife.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Which Is also The Last.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Upon leaving Major Pagebrook Billy mounted his horse and galloped away
+toward Shirley, not caring to remain till the court should reassemble at
+four, as there could hardly be any business done beyond the formal
+presentation of the indictments by the grand jury and the committal of
+the prisoners to await trial.</p>
+
+<p>When he entered the yard gate at Shirley he found his father, who had
+returned from the court house some time before, awaiting him.</p>
+
+<p>"I have not told Sudie, my son," said the old gentleman. "I found it
+hard to keep my lips closed, but you have managed this affair grandly,
+my boy, and you ought to have the pleasure of telling the story in your
+own way. Go into the office, and I'll send Sudie to you."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sudie was naturally enough alarmed when her uncle, repressing
+everything like an expression of joy, and in doing that managing to look
+as solemn as a death warrant, told her that Billy wanted to see her in
+the office immediately. But Billy's look, as she entered, reassured her.
+He met her just inside the door, and taking her face between his hands,
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm as proud and as glad as a boy with red morocco tops to his boots,
+little girl."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus9" id="illus9"></a>
+<img src="images/illus9.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"I'M AS PROUD AND AS GLAD AS A BOY WITH RED MOROCCO TOPS TO HIS BOOTS."</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>"What about, Cousin Billy?" asked Miss Sudie in a tremor of uncertainty.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I've been doing the duty you set me. I've been 'turning
+something up.' I've torn the mask off of that dear old rascal Bob
+Pagebrook, and shown him up in his true colors. It's just shameful the
+way he's been deceiving us, making us think him an absconding debtor and
+all that when he a'n't anything of the sort. He's as true as&mdash;as you
+are. There; that's a figure of speech he'd approve if he could hear it,
+and he shall too. I'm going to write him a letter to-night, telling him
+just what I think of him."</p>
+
+<p>There was a little flutter in Miss Sudie's manner as she sat down,
+unable to stand any longer.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me about it, please," was all she could say.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, in a word, Bob's all right, with a big balance over. He's as
+straight as a well rope when the bucket's full. Let me make you
+understand that in advance, and then I'll tell my story."</p>
+
+<p>And with this Billy proceeded in his own way to tell the young woman all
+about the visit to Philadelphia and its results. When he had finished
+Miss Sudie simply sat and looked at him, smiling through her tears the
+thankfulness she could not put into words. When after awhile she found
+her voice she said some things which were very pleasant indeed to Mr.
+Billy in the hearing.</p>
+
+<p>The next day's mail carried three letters to Mr. Robert Pagebrook. What
+Miss Sudie said in hers I do not know, and if I did I should not tell.
+Col. Barksdale wrote in a stately way, as he always did when he meant to
+be particularly affectionate, the gist of his letter lying in the
+sentence with which he opened it, which was:</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know, until now, how much of your father there is in you."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Billy's letter would make the fortune of any comic paper if it could
+be published. Robert insists that there were just three hundred and
+sixty-five hitherto unheard of metaphors in the body of it, and
+twenty-one more in the postscript. He says he counted them carefully.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally enough, after all that had happened, everybody at Shirley
+wanted Robert to come back again as soon as possible, and one and all
+entreated him to spend the Christmas there. This he promised to do, but
+at the last moment he was forced to abandon his purpose in consequence
+of the utter failure of Mr. Dudley's health, an occurrence which left
+Robert with the entire burden of the paper upon him, and made it
+impossible for him to leave New York during the holidays. Even with
+Robert there the publishers were anxious about the management of the
+paper at so critical a time; but Robert's single-handed success fully
+justified the confidence Mr. Dudley had felt and expressed in his
+ability to conduct the paper, and when, a month later, Dudley resigned
+entirely, to go abroad in search of health, our friend Robert Pagebrook
+was promoted to his place and pay, having won his way in a few months to
+a position in his new profession which he had not hoped to gain without
+years of patient toil.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of my story hardly needs telling. The winter was passed in hard
+work on Robert's part, but the work was of a sort which it delighted him
+to do. He knew the worth of printed words, and rejoiced in the
+possession of that power which the printing-press only can give to a
+man, multiplying him, as it were, and enabling him to give utterance to
+his thought in the presence of an audience too vast and too widely
+scattered ever to be reached by any one human voice. It was a favorite
+theory of his, too, that printed words carry with them some of the force
+expended upon them by the press itself&mdash;that a sentence which would fall
+meaningless from its author's lips may mold a score of human lives if it
+be put in type. He was and is an enthusiast in his work, and never
+apostle went forth to preach a new gospel with more of earnestness or
+with a stronger sense of responsibility than Robert Pagebrook brings
+with him daily to his desk.</p>
+
+<p>The winter softened into spring, and when the spring was richest in its
+promise there was a quiet wedding at Shirley.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>My story is fully told, but my friend who writes novels insists that I
+must not lay down the pen until I shall have gathered up what he calls
+the loose threads, and knitted them into a seemly and unraveled end.</p>
+
+<p>Major Pagebrook, dreading the possible exposure of his wife's
+misconduct, placed money in the hands of a friend, and that friend
+became surety for Dr. Harrison's appearance when called for trial. Of
+course Dr. Harrison betook himself to other parts, going, indeed, to the
+West Indies, where he died of yellow fever a year or two later. Foggy
+disappeared also, but whither he went I really do not know.</p>
+
+<p>Billy Barksdale is still a bachelor, and still likes to listen while
+Aunt Catherine explains relationships with her keys.</p>
+
+<p>Col. Barksdale has retired from practice, and lives quietly at Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Sarah Ann is still Cousin Sarah Ann, but she lives in Richmond
+now, having discovered years ago that the air of the country did not
+agree with her.</p>
+
+<p>Robert and Sudie have a pretty little place in the country, within half
+an hour's ride of New York, and I sometimes run out to spend a quiet
+Sunday with Cousin Sudie. Robert I can see in his office any day. Their
+oldest boy, William Barksdale Pagebrook, entered college last
+September.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>THE Hoosier School-Master.</h3>
+
+<h3>By EDWARD EGGLESTON.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Finely Illustrated, with 12 full-page Engravings and Numerous other
+Cuts.</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">CONTENTS.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter      I.</span>&mdash;A Private Lesson from a Bull-dog.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter     II.</span>&mdash;A Spell Coming.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter    III.</span>&mdash;Mirandy, Hank, and Shocky.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter     IV.</span>&mdash;Spelling down the Master.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter      V.</span>&mdash;The Walk Home.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter     VI.</span>&mdash;A Night at Pete Jones's.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter    VII.</span>&mdash;Ominous Remarks of Mr. Jones.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter   VIII.</span>&mdash;The Struggle in the Dark.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter     IX.</span>&mdash;Has God Forgotten Shocky?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter      X.</span>&mdash;The Devil of Silence.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter     XI.</span>&mdash;Miss Martha Hawkins.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter    XII.</span>&mdash;The Hardshell Preacher.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter   XIII.</span>&mdash;A Struggle for the Mastery.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter    XIV.</span>&mdash;A Crisis with Bud.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter     XV.</span>&mdash;The Church of the Best Licks.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter    XVI.</span>&mdash;The Church Militant.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter   XVII.</span>&mdash;A Council of War.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter  XVIII.</span>&mdash;Odds and Ends.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter    XIX.</span>&mdash;Face to Face.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter     XX.</span>&mdash;God Remembers Shocky.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter    XXI.</span>&mdash;Miss Nancy Sawyer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter   XXII.</span>&mdash;Pancakes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter  XXIII.</span>&mdash;A Charitable Institution.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter   XXIV.</span>&mdash;The Good Samaritan.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter    XXV.</span>&mdash;Bud Wooing.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter   XXVI.</span>&mdash;A Letter and its Consequences.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter  XXVII.</span>&mdash;A Loss and a Gain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter XXVIII.</span>&mdash;The Flight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter   XXIX.</span>&mdash;The Trial.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter    XXX.</span>&mdash;"Brother Sodom."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter   XXXI.</span>&mdash;The Trial Concluded.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter  XXXII.</span>&mdash;After the Battle.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter XXXIII.</span>&mdash;Into the Light.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Chapter  XXXIV.</span>&mdash;"How it Came Out."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<h3>THE END OF THE WORLD.</h3>
+
+<h3>A LOVE STORY.</h3>
+
+<h3>BY EDWARD EGGLESTON.</h3>
+
+<p>Author of "The Hoosier School-master," etc.</p>
+
+<p>With 15 full page Engravings, and numerous other Fine Illustrations.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">CONTENTS.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I.&mdash;In Love with a Dutchman.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">II.&mdash;An Explosion.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">III.&mdash;A Farewell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">IV.&mdash;A Counter-Irritant.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">V.&mdash;At the Castle.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">VI.&mdash;The Backwoods Philosopher.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">VII.&mdash;Within and Without.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">VIII.&mdash;Figgers won't Lie.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">IX.&mdash;The New Singing-Master.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">X.&mdash;An Offer of Help.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XI.&mdash;The Coon-dog Argument.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XII.&mdash;Two Mistakes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XIII.&mdash;The Spider Spins.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XIV.&mdash;The Spider's Web.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XV.&mdash;The Web Broken.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XVI.&mdash;Jonas Expounds the Subject.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XVII.&mdash;The Wrong Pew.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XVIII.&mdash;The Encounter.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XIX.&mdash;The Mother.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XX.&mdash;The Steam-Doctor.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXI.&mdash;The Hawk in a New Part.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXII.&mdash;Jonas Expresses his Opinion on Dutchmen.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXIII.&mdash;Somethin' Ludikerous.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXIV.&mdash;The Giant Great-heart.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXV.&mdash;A Chapter of Betweens.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXVI.&mdash;A Nice Little Game.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXVII.&mdash;The Result of an Evening with Gentlemen.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXVIII.&mdash;Waking up an Ugly Customer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXIX.&mdash;August and Norman.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXX.&mdash;Aground.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXXI.&mdash;Cynthy Ann's Sacrifice.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXXII.&mdash;Julia's Enterprise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXXIII.&mdash;The Secret Stairway.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXXIV.&mdash;The Interview.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXXV.&mdash;Getting Ready for the End.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXXVI.&mdash;The Sin of Sanctimony.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXXVII.&mdash;The Deluge.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXXVIII.&mdash;Scaring a Hawk.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XXXIX.&mdash;Jonas takes an Appeal.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XL.&mdash;Selling Out.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XLI.&mdash;The Last Day and What Happened in it.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XLII.&mdash;For Ever and Ever.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XLIII.&mdash;The Midnight Alarm.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XLIV.&mdash;Squaring Accounts.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XLV.&mdash;New Plans.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">XLVI.&mdash;The Shiveree.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>THE MYSTERY OF METROPOLISVILLE.</h3>
+
+<h3>By EDWARD EGGLESTON,</h3>
+
+<p><i>Author of "The Hoosier School-Master," "The End of the World," etc.</i></p>
+
+<p>With Thirteen Illustrations.</p>
+
+
+<p>CONTENTS.</p>
+
+<p>Preface.&mdash;Words Beforehand. Chapter 1. The Autocrat of the
+Stage-Coach.&mdash;2. The Sod Tavern.&mdash;3. Land and Love.&mdash;4. Albert and
+Katy.&mdash;5. Corner Lots.&mdash;6. Little Katy's Lover.&mdash;7. Catching and getting
+Caught.&mdash;8. Isabel Marlay.&mdash;9. Lovers and Lovers.&mdash;10. Plausaby, Esq.,
+takes a Fatherly Interest.&mdash;11, About Several Things.&mdash;12. An
+Adventure.&mdash;13. A Shelter.&mdash;14. The Inhabitant.&mdash;15. An Episode.&mdash;16.
+The Return.&mdash;17. Sawney and his Old Love.&mdash;18. A Collision.&mdash;19.
+Standing Guard in Vain.&mdash;20. Sawney and Westcott.&mdash;21. Rowing.&mdash;22.
+Sailing.&mdash;23. Sinking.&mdash;24. Dragging.&mdash;25. Afterwards.&mdash;26. The
+Mystery.&mdash;27. The Arrest.&mdash;28. The Tempter.&mdash;29. The Trial.&mdash;30. The
+Penitentiary.&mdash;31. Mr. Lurton.&mdash;32. A Confession.&mdash;33. Death.&mdash;34. Mr.
+Lurton's Courtship.&mdash;35. Unbarred.&mdash;36. Isabel.&mdash;37. The Last.&mdash;Words
+Afterwards.</p>
+
+
+<p>ILLUSTRATIONS.&mdash;<span class="smcap">By</span> FRANK BEARD.</p>
+
+<p>His Unselfish Love found a Melancholy Recompense.&mdash;The Superior
+Being.&mdash;Mr. Minorkey and the Fat Gentleman.&mdash;Plausaby sells Lots.&mdash;"By
+George! He! he! he!"&mdash;Mrs. Plausaby.&mdash;The Inhabitant.&mdash;A Pinch of
+Snuff.&mdash;Mrs. Ferret&mdash;One Savage Blow full in the face.&mdash;"What on Airth's
+the Matter?"&mdash;The Editor of "The Windmill."&mdash;"Get up and Foller!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE;<br /> A Guide to the Successful Propagation and
+Cultivation OF FLORISTS' PLANTS.</h3>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">By PETER HENDERSON, Bergen City, N. J.</span>,</h3>
+
+<p>AUTHOR OF "GARDENING FOR PROFIT."</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Henderson</span> is known as the largest Commercial Florist In the country.
+In the present work he gives a full account of his modes of propagation
+and cultivation. It is adapted to the wants of the amateur, as well as
+the professional grower.</p>
+
+<p>The scope of the work may be judged from the following</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">TABLE OF CONTENTS.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Aspect and Soil.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Laying out Lawn and Flower Gardens.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Designs for Flower Gardens.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Planting of Flower Beds.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soils for Potting.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Temperature and Moisture.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Potting of Plants.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cold Frames&mdash;Winter Protection.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Construction of Hot-Beds.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Greenhouse Structures.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Modes of Heating.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Propagation by Seeds.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Propagation by Cuttings.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Propagation of Lilies.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Culture of the Rose.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Culture of the Verbena.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Culture of the Tuberose.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Orchid Culture.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Holland Bulbs.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cape Bulbs.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Winter-Flowering Plants.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Construction of Bouquets.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hanging Baskets.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Window Gardening.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rock-Work.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Insects.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nature's Law of Colors.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Packing Plants.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Plants by Mail.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Profits of Floriculture.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soft-Wooded Plants.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Annuals.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hardy Herbaceous Plants.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Greenhouse Plants.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Diary of Operations for each Day of the Year.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>PARSONS ON THE ROSE.</h3>
+
+<h3>A TREATISE ON THE Propagation, Culture, and History of the Rose.</h3>
+
+<h3>By SAMUEL B. PARSONS.</h3>
+
+<p>NEW AND REVISED EDITION.</p>
+
+<p>ILLUSTRATED.</p>
+
+
+<p>The Rose is the only flower that can be said to have a history. It is
+popular now, and was so centuries ago. In his work upon the Rose, Mr.
+Parsons has gathered up the curious legends concerning the flower, and
+gives us an idea of the esteem in which it was held in former times. A
+simple garden classification has been adopted, and the leading varieties
+under each class enumerated and briefly described. The chapters on
+multiplication, cultivation, and training, are very full, and the work
+is altogether the most complete of any before the public.</p>
+
+<p>The following is from the author's Preface:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"In offering a new edition of this work, the preparation of which
+gave us pleasure more than twenty years ago, we have not only
+carefully revised the garden classification, but have stricken out
+much of the poetry, which, to the cultivator, may have seemed
+irrelevant, if not worthless. For the interest of the classical
+scholar, we have retained much of the early history of the Rose,
+and its connection with the manners and customs of the two great
+nations of a former age.</p>
+
+<p>"The amateur will, we think, find the labor of selection much
+diminished by the increased simplicity of the mode we have adopted,
+while the commercial gardener will in nowise be injured by the
+change.</p>
+
+<p>"In directions for culture, we give the results of our own
+experience, and have not hesitated to avail ourselves of any
+satisfactory results in the experience of others, which might
+enhance the utility of the work."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">CONTENTS:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER I.&mdash;BOTANICAL CLASSIFICATION.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER II.&mdash;GARDEN CLASSIFICATION.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER III.&mdash;GENERAL CULTURE OF THE ROSE.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER IV.&mdash;SOIL, SITUATION, AND PLANTING.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER V.&mdash;PRUNING, TRAINING, AND BEDDING.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER VI.&mdash;POTTING AND FORCING.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER VII.&mdash;PROPAGATION.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER VIII.&mdash;MULTIPLICATION BY SEED AND HYBRIDIZING.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER IX.&mdash;DISEASES AND INSECTS ATTACKING THE ROSE.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER X.&mdash;EARLY HISTORY OF THE ROSE, AND FABLES RESPECTING ITS ORIGIN.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER XI.&mdash;LUXURIOUS USE OF THE ROSE.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER XII.&mdash;THE ROSE IN CEREMONIES AND FESTIVALS, AND IN THE ADORNMENT OF BURIAL-PLACES.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER XIII.&mdash;THE ROSE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER XIV.&mdash;PERFUMES OF THE ROSE.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER XV.&mdash;MEDICAL PROPERTIES OF THE ROSE.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">CHAPTER XVI.&mdash;GENERAL REMARKS.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>BEAUTIFYING COUNTRY HOMES.</h3>
+
+<h3><i>A Hand-Book of Landscape Gardening.</i></h3>
+
+<h3>BY J. WEIDENMANN.</h3>
+
+<p>A SPLENDID QUARTO VOLUME.</p>
+
+<p>Beautifully Illustrated with numerous fine food Engravings, and with 17
+Full-Page and 7 Double-Page Colored Lithographs OF PLACES ALREADY
+IMPROVED.</p>
+
+<p>MAKE HOME BEAUTIFUL.</p>
+
+<p>NOTICES BY THE PRESS.</p>
+
+
+<p>A home! A home in the country! and a home made beautiful by taste! Here
+are three ideas which invest with a triple charm the subject of this
+exquisite volume. We know of nothing which indicates a more healthy
+progress among our countrymen than the growing taste for such homes. The
+American people are quick to follow a fashion, and it is getting to be
+the fashion to have a place in the country, and to beautify it; and this
+is at once fed and guided by such books as this, which lay down the just
+principles of landscape gardening; and teach all how to use the means at
+their disposal. This book is prepared with careful judgment. It includes
+many plans, and furnishes minute instruction for the laying out of
+grounds and the planting of trees. We have found very great pleasure in
+a first inspection, and doubt not that when another summer returns, we
+shall find the book as practically useful, as it is beautiful to the eye
+and exciting to the imagination.&mdash;<i>N. Y. Evangelist.</i></p>
+
+<p>We have from Orange Judd &amp; Co. a magnificent manual, entitled
+<i>Beautifying Country Homes; a Hand-Book of Landscape Gardening</i>. It is a
+brief treatise on landscape gardening and architecture, explaining the
+principles of beauty which apply to it, and making just those practical
+suggestions of which every builder and owner of a little land, who
+desires to make the most of it in the way of convenience and taste,
+stands in need, in regard to lawns, drainage, roads, drives, walks,
+grading, fences, hedges, trees&mdash;their selection and their
+grouping&mdash;flowers, water, ornamentation, rock-work, tools, and general
+improvements. The chapter on "improving new places economically" would
+be worth much more than the cost of the book ten times over to many
+persons. The whole is illustrated, not only by little sketches, but by a
+series of full-page lithographs of places which have been actually
+treated in accordance with the principles laid down, with lists of trees
+and shrubs, and other useful suggestions. We have never met with any
+thing&mdash;and we have given a good deal of attention to the subject, and
+bought a great many books upon it&mdash;which seemed to us so helpful and, in
+general, so trustworthy as this treatise, which we heartily commend. We
+omitted to say that it has been done by Mr. J. Weidenmann,
+Superintendent of the City Park, and of Cedar Hill Cemetery, Hartford,
+Conn.&mdash;<i>Congregationalist</i>, (Boston.)</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Man of Honor, by George Cary Eggleston
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Man of Honor, by George Cary Eggleston
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Man of Honor
+
+Author: George Cary Eggleston
+
+Release Date: September 30, 2011 [EBook #37563]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MAN OF HONOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               A MAN OF HONOR.
+
+                          BY GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON.
+
+
+    ILLUSTRATED
+    BY M. WOOLF
+
+    NEW YORK:
+    ORANGE JUDD COMPANY,
+    245 BROADWAY.
+
+    Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by the
+    ORANGE JUDD COMPANY,
+    In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+
+
+
+    TO MARION, MY WIFE.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "I'VE GOT YOU NOW."]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+I have long been curious to know whether or not I could write a pretty
+good story, and now that the publishers are about to send the usual
+press copies of this book to the critics I am in a fair way to have my
+curiosity on that point satisfied.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+       Chapter I.--Mr. Pagebrook gets up and Calls an Ancient
+                   Lawgiver                                            11
+
+      Chapter II.--Mr. Pagebrook is Invited to Breakfast               22
+
+     Chapter III.--Mr. Pagebrook Eats his Breakfast                    26
+
+      Chapter IV.--Mr. Pagebrook Learns something about the
+                   Customs of the Country                              35
+
+       Chapter V.--Mr. Pagebrook Makes Some Acquaintances              42
+
+      Chapter VI.--Mr. Pagebrook Makes a Good Impression               48
+
+     Chapter VII.--Mr. Pagebrook Learns Several Things                 54
+
+    Chapter VIII.--Miss Sudie Makes an Apt Quotation                   61
+
+      Chapter IX.--Mr. Pagebrook Meets an Acquaintance                 65
+
+       Chapter X.--Chiefly Concerning "Foggy."                         70
+
+      Chapter XI.--Mr. Pagebrook Rides                                 79
+
+     Chapter XII.--Mr. Pagebrook Dines with his Cousin Sarah Ann       84
+
+    Chapter XIII.--Concerning the Rivulets of Blue Blood               95
+
+     Chapter XIV.--Mr. Pagebrook Manages to be in at the Death        102
+
+      Chapter XV.--Some very Unreasonable Conduct                     109
+
+     Chapter XVI.--What Occurred Next Morning                         118
+
+    Chapter XVII.--In which Mr. Pagebrook Bids his Friends Good-by    123
+
+   Chapter XVIII.--Mr. Pagebrook Goes to Work                         128
+
+     Chapter XIX.--A Short Chapter, not very interesting, perhaps,
+                   but of some Importance in the Story, as the
+                   Reader will probably discover after awhile         134
+
+      Chapter XX.--Cousin Sarah Ann Takes Robert's Part               138
+
+     Chapter XXI.--Miss Barksdale Expresses some Opinions             143
+
+    Chapter XXII.--Mr. Sharp Does His Duty                            150
+
+   Chapter XXIII.--Mr. Pagebrook Takes a Lesson in the Law            158
+
+    Chapter XXIV.--Mr. Pagebrook Cuts himself loose from the Past
+                   and Plans a Future                                 163
+
+     Chapter XXV.--In which Miss Sudie Acts very Unreasonably         166
+
+    Chapter XXVI.--In which Miss Sudie Adopts the Socratic Method.    175
+
+   Chapter XXVII.--Mr. Pagebrook Accepts an Invitation to Lunch
+                   and another Invitation                             181
+
+  Chapter XXVIII.--Major Pagebrook asserts himself                    188
+
+    Chapter XXIX.--Mr. Barksdale, the Younger, Goes upon a Journey    198
+
+     Chapter XXX.--The younger Mr. Barksdale Asks to be put upon
+                   His Oath                                           204
+
+    Chapter XXXI.--Mr. William Barksdale Explains                     208
+
+   Chapter XXXII.--Which Is also The Last                             216
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+
+
+"I've got You Now."                                      _Frontispiece_.
+
+Mr. Robert Pagebrook was "Blue."                                  13
+
+"I fall at once into a Chronic State of Washing up Things."       57
+
+"Foggy."                                                          73
+
+Cousin Sarah Ann                                                  87
+
+The Rivulets of Blue Blood                                        98
+
+Miss Sudie declares herself "so glad."                           116
+
+"Let him Serve it at once, then."                                156
+
+"Very well, then."                                               194
+
+"I'm as Proud and as Glad as a Boy with Red Morocco Tops
+to his Boots."                                                   218
+
+
+
+
+A MAN OF HONOR.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook gets up and calls an Ancient Lawgiver._
+
+
+Mr. Robert Pagebrook was "blue." There was no denying the fact, and for
+the first time in his life he admitted it as he lay abed one September
+morning with his hands locked over the top of his head, while his
+shapely and muscular body was stretched at lazy length under a scanty
+covering of sheet. He was snappish too, as his faithful serving man had
+discovered upon knocking half an hour ago for entrance, and receiving a
+rather pointed and wholly unreasonable injunction to "go about his
+business," his sole business lying just then within the precincts of Mr.
+Robert Pagebrook's room, to which he was thus denied admittance. The old
+servant had obeyed to the best of his ability, going not about his
+business but away from it, wondering meanwhile what had come over the
+young gentleman, whom he had never found moody before.
+
+[Illustration: "MR. ROBERT PAGEBROOK WAS 'BLUE.'"]
+
+It was clear that Mr. Robert Pagebrook's reflections were anything but
+pleasant as he lay there thinking, thinking, thinking--resolving not to
+think and straightway thinking again harder than ever. His disturbance
+was due to a combination of causes. His muddy boots were in full view
+for one thing, and he was painfully conscious that they were not likely
+to get themselves blacked now that he had driven old Moses away. This
+reminded him that he had showed temper when Moses's meek knock had
+disturbed him, and to show temper without proper cause he deemed a
+weakness. Weaknesses were his pet aversion. Weakness found little
+toleration with him, particularly when the weakness showed itself in his
+own person, out of which he had been all his life chastising such
+infirmities. His petulance with Moses, therefore, contributed to his
+annoyance, becoming an additional cause of that from which it came as an
+effect.
+
+Our young gentleman acknowledged, as I have already said, that he was
+out of spirits, and in the very act of acknowledging it he contemned
+himself because of it. His sturdy manhood rebelled against its own
+weakness, and mocked at it, which certainly was not a very good way to
+cure it. He denied that there was any good excuse for his depression,
+and scourged himself, mentally, for giving way to it, a process which
+naturally enough made him give way to it all the more. It depressed him
+to know that he was weak enough to be depressed. To my thinking he did
+himself very great injustice. He was, in fact, very unreasonable with
+himself, and deserved to suffer the consequences. I say this frankly,
+being the chronicler of this young man's doings and not his apologist by
+any means. He certainly had good reason to be gloomy, inasmuch as he had
+two rather troublesome things on his hands, namely, a young man without
+a situation and a disappointment in love, or fancy, which is often
+mistaken for love. A circumstance which made the matter worse was that
+the young man without a situation for whose future Mr. Robert Pagebrook
+had to provide was Mr. Robert Pagebrook himself. This alone would not
+have troubled him greatly if it had not been for his other trouble; for
+the great hulking fellow who lay there with his hands clasped over his
+head "cogitating," as he would have phrased it, had too much physical
+force, too much of good health and consequent animal spirits, to
+distrust either the future or his own ability to cope with whatever
+difficulties it might bring with it. To men with broad chests and great
+brawny legs and arms like his the future has a very promising way of
+presenting itself. Besides, our young man knew himself well furnished
+for a fight with the world. He knew very well how to take care of
+himself. He had done farm labor as a boy during the long summer
+vacations, a task set him by his Virginian father, who had carried a
+brilliant intellect in a frail body to a western state, where he had
+married and died, leaving his widow this one son, for whom in his own
+weakness he desired nothing so much as physical strength and bodily
+health. The boy had grown into a sturdy youth when the mother died,
+leaving him with little in the way of earthly possessions except
+well-knit limbs, a clear, strong, active mind, and an independent,
+self-reliant spirit. With these he had managed to work his way through
+college, turning his hand to anything which would help to provide him
+with the necessary means--keeping books, "coaching" other students,
+canvassing for various things, and doing work of other sorts, caring
+little whether it was dignified or undignified provided it was honest
+and promised the desired pecuniary return. After graduation he had
+accepted a tutorship in the college wherein he had studied--a position
+which he had resigned (about a year before the time at which we find him
+in a fit of the blues) to take upon himself the duties of "Professor of
+English Language and Literature, and Adjunct Professor of Mathematics,"
+in a little collegiate institute with big pretensions in one of the
+suburbs of Philadelphia. In short, he had been knocked about in the
+world until he had acquired considerable confidence in his ability to
+earn a living at almost anything he might undertake.
+
+Under the circumstances, therefore, it is not probable that this
+energetic and self-confident young gentleman would have suffered the
+loss of his professorship to annoy him very seriously if it had not been
+accompanied by the other trouble mentioned. Indeed, the two had come so
+closely together, and were so intimately connected in other ways, that
+Mr. Robert Pagebrook was inclined to wonder, as he lay there in bed,
+whether there might not exist between them somewhere the relation of
+cause and effect. Whether there really was any other than an accidental
+blending of the two events I am sure I do not know; and the reader is at
+liberty, after hearing the brief story of their happening, to take
+either side he prefers of the question raised in Mr. Rob's mind. For
+myself, I find it impossible to determine the point. But here is the
+story, as young Pagebrook turned it over and over in his mind in spite
+of himself.
+
+President Currier, of the collegiate institute, had a daughter, Miss
+Nellie, who wanted to study Latin more than anything else in the world.
+President Currier particularly disliked conjugations and parsings and
+everything else pertaining to the study of language; and so it happened
+that as Miss Nellie was quite a good-looking and agreeable damsel, our
+young friend Pagebrook volunteered to give her the coveted instruction
+in her favorite study in the shape of afternoon lessons. The tutor soon
+discovered that his pupil's earnest wish to learn Latin had been
+based--as such desires frequently are in the case of young women--upon
+an entire misapprehension of the nature and difficulty of the study. In
+fact, Miss Nellie's clearest idea upon the subject of Latin before
+beginning it was that "it must be so nice!" Her progress, therefore,
+after the first week or two, was certainly not remarkable for its
+rapidity; but the tutor persisted. After awhile the young lady said
+"Latin wasn't nice at all," a remark which she made haste to qualify by
+assuring her teacher that "it's nice to take lessons in it, though."
+Finally Miss Nellie ceased to make any pretense of learning the lessons,
+but somehow the afternoon _seances_ over the grammar were continued,
+though it must be confessed that the talk was not largely of verbs.
+
+By the time commencement day came the occasional presence of Miss Nellie
+had become a sort of necessity in the young professor's daily existence,
+and the desire to be with her led him to spend the summer at Cape May,
+whither her father annually took her for the season. Now Cape May is an
+expensive place, as watering places usually are, and so Mr. Robert
+Pagebrook's stay of a little over two months there made a serious
+reduction in his reserve fund, which was at best a very limited one.
+Before going to Cape May he had concluded that he was in love with Miss
+Nellie, and had informed her of the fact. She had expressed, by manner
+rather than by spoken word, a reasonable degree of pleasure in the
+knowledge of this fact; but when pressed for a reply to the young
+gentleman's impetuous questionings, she had prettily avoided committing
+herself beyond recall. She told him she might possibly come to love him
+a little after awhile, in a pretty little maidenly way, which satisfied
+him that she loved him a good deal already. She said she "didn't know"
+with a tone and manner which convinced him that she did know; and so the
+Cape May season passed off very pleasantly, with just enough of
+uncertainty about the position of affairs to keep up an interest in
+them.
+
+As the season drew near its close, however, Miss Nellie suddenly
+informed her lover one evening that her dear father had "plans" for her,
+and that of course they had both been amusing themselves merely; and she
+said this in so innocent and so sincere a way that for the moment her
+stunned admirer believed it as he retired to his room with an unusual
+ache in his heart. When the young man sat down alone, however, and began
+meditating upon the events of the past summer, he was unreasonable
+enough to accuse the innocent little maiden of very naughty trifling,
+and even to think her wanting in honesty and sincerity. As he sat there
+brooding over the matter, and half hoping that Miss Nellie was only
+trying him for the purpose of testing the depth of his affection, a
+servant brought him a note, which he opened and read. It was a very
+formal affair, as the reader will see upon running his eye over the
+following copy:
+
+     CAPE MAY, Sept. 10th, 18--.
+
+     _Dear Sir_:--It becomes my duty to inform you that the authorities
+     controlling the collegiate institute's affairs, having found it
+     necessary to retrench its expenses somewhat, have determined to
+     dispense altogether with the adjunct professorship of Mathematics,
+     and to distribute the duties appertaining to the chair of English
+     Language and Literature among the other members of the faculty. In
+     consequence of these changes we shall hereafter be deprived of your
+     valuable assistance in the collegiate institute. There is yet due
+     you three hundred dollars ($300) upon your salary for the late
+     collegiate year, and I greatly regret that the treasurer informs me
+     of a present lack of funds with which to discharge this obligation.
+     I personally promise you, however, that the amount shall be
+     remitted to whatever address you may give me, on or before the
+     fifteenth day of November next. I send this by a messenger just as
+     I am upon the point of leaving Cape May for a brief trip to other
+     parts of the country. I remain, sir, with the utmost respect,
+
+     Your obedient servant,
+
+     DAVID CURRIER,
+
+     President, etc.
+
+     _To Professor Robert Pagebrook._
+
+This letter had come to Mr. Robert very unexpectedly, and its immediate
+consequence had been to send him hastily back to his city lodgings. He
+had arrived late at night, and finding no matches in his room, which was
+situated in a business building where his neighbors were unknown to him,
+he had been compelled to go to bed in the dark, without the possibility
+of ascertaining whether or not there were any letters awaiting him on
+his table.
+
+Our young gentleman was not, ordinarily, of an irritable disposition,
+and trifling things rarely ever disturbed his equanimity, but he was
+forced to admit, as he lay there in bed, that he had been a very
+unreasonable young gentleman on several recent occasions, and naturally
+enough he began to catalogue his sins of this sort. Among other things
+he remembered that he had worked himself into a temper over the
+emptiness of the match-safe; and this reminded him that he had not even
+yet looked to see if there were any letters on the table at his elbow,
+much as he had the night previously bewailed the impossibility of doing
+so at once. Somehow this matter of his correspondence did not seem half
+so imperative in its demands upon his attention now that he could read
+his letters at once as it had seemed the night before when he could not
+read them at all. He stretched out his hand rather languidly, therefore,
+and taking up the half dozen letters which lay on the table, began to
+turn them over, examining the superscriptions with small show of
+interest. Breaking one open he muttered, "There's another forty dollars'
+worth of folly. I did not need that coat, but ordered it expressly for
+Cape May. The bill must be paid, of course, and here I am, out of work,
+with no prospects, and about five hundred dollars less money in bank
+than I ought to have. ----!"
+
+I am really afraid he closed that sentence with an ejaculation. I have
+set down an exclamation point to cover the possibility of such a thing.
+
+He went on with his letters. Presently he opened the last but one, and
+immediately proceeded to open his eyes rather wider than usual. Jumping
+out of bed he thrust his head out of the door and called,
+
+"Moses!"
+
+"_Moses!!_"
+
+"MOSES!!!"
+
+"MOSES!!!!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook is invited to Breakfast._
+
+
+After he had waked up whatever echoes there were in the building by his
+crescendo calling for Moses, besides spoiling the temper of the night
+editor who was just then in the midst of his first slumber in the room
+opposite, Mr. Rob remembered that the old colored janitor, who owned the
+biblical name, and who for a trifling consideration ministered in the
+capacity of servant to the personal comfort of the occupants of the
+rooms under his charge, was never known to answer a call. He was sure to
+be within hearing, but would maintain a profound silence until he had
+disposed of whatever matter he might happen to have in hand at the
+moment, after which he would come to the caller in the sedate and
+dignified way proper to a person of his importance. Remembering this,
+and hearing some ominous mutterings from the night editor's room, our
+young gentleman withdrew his head from the corridor, put on his
+dressing-gown and slippers, and sat down to await the leisurely coming
+of the serving man.
+
+Taking up the note again he reread it, although he knew perfectly well
+everything in it, and began speculating upon what it could possibly
+mean, knowing all the while that no amount of speculation could throw
+the slightest ray of light on the subject in the absence of further
+information. He read it aloud, just as you or I would have done, when
+there was nobody by to listen. It was as brief as a telegram, and merely
+said: "Will you please inform me at once whether we may count upon your
+acceptance of the position offered you?" It was signed with an
+unfamiliar name, to which was appended the abbreviated word "Pres't."
+
+"I shall certainly be very happy to inform the gentleman," thought the
+perplexed young man, "whether he may or may not (by the way he very
+improperly omits the alternative 'or not' after his 'whether'), whether
+he may or may not 'count upon' (I must look up that expression and see
+if there is good authority for its use), whether he may or may not count
+upon my acceptance of the position offered me, just as soon as I can
+inform myself upon the matter. As I have not at present the slightest
+idea of what the 'position' is, it is somewhat difficult for me to make
+up my mind concerning it. However, as I am without employment and
+uncomfortably short of money, there seems to be every probability that
+my unknown correspondent's proposition, whatever it is, will be
+favorably considered. Moses will come after awhile, I suppose, and he
+probably has the other letter caged as a 'vallable.' Let me see what we
+have here from William."
+
+With this our young gentleman opened his only remaining letter, which
+he had already discovered by a glance at the postmark was from a
+Virginian cousin. It was a mere note, in which his cousin wrote:
+
+"A little matter of business takes me to Philadelphia next week. Shall
+be at Girard Ho., Thrsd morn'g. Meet me there at breakfast, but don't
+come too early. Train won't get in till three, so I'll sleep a little
+late. Sh'd you wake me too early, I'll be as cross as a $20 bank-note,
+and make a bad impression on you."
+
+An amused smile played over Mr. Robert's face as he read this note over
+and over. What he was thinking I do not know. Aloud he said:
+
+"What a passion my cousin has for abbreviations! One would think he had
+a grudge against words from the way in which he cuts them up. And what a
+figure of speech that is! 'As cross as a twenty-dollar bank-note!' Let
+me see. I may safely assume that the letters 'Thrs' with an elevated 'd'
+mean Thursday, and as this is Thursday, and as the letter was written
+last week, and as my watch tells me it is now ten o'clock, and as my
+boots are still unblacked, and as Moses has not yet made his appearance,
+it seems altogether probable that my cousin's breakfast will be
+postponed until the middle of the day if he waits for me to help him eat
+it. I am afraid he will be as cross as half a dozen bank notes of the
+largest denomination issued when we meet."
+
+"Did you call, sah?" asked Moses, coming very deliberately into the
+room.
+
+"I am under the impression that I did, though it requires an
+extraordinary exercise of the memory to recall an event which happened
+so long ago. Have you any 'vallables' for me?"
+
+Moses _thought_ he had. This was as near an approach to anything like a
+positive statement as Moses ever made. He would go to his room and
+ascertain. Among many other evidences of unusual wisdom on the part of
+the old negro was this, that he believed himself fully capable of
+recognizing a valuable letter whenever he saw it; and it was one of his
+self-imposed duties, whenever the post brought letters for any absent
+member of his constituency, to look them over and sequestrate all the
+"vallables" until the return of the owner, so that they might be
+delivered with his own hand. Returning now he brought two "vallables"
+for Mr. Pagebrook. One of them was a printed circular, but the other
+proved to be the desired letter, which was a formal tender of a
+professorship in a New England college, with an entirely satisfactory
+salary attached. Accompanying the official notice of election was a note
+informing him that his duties, in the event of acceptance, would not
+begin until the first of January, the engagement of the retiring
+professor terminating at that time.
+
+Under the influence of this news our young friend's face brightened
+quite as perceptibly as his boots did in the hands of the old servitor.
+He wrote his letter of acceptance at once, and then proceeded to dress
+for breakfast at the Girard House, whither he walked with as light a
+step and as cheerful a bearing as if he had not been a sadly
+disappointed lover at all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Eats his Breakfast._
+
+
+Robert Pagebrook had never seen his cousin, and yet they were not
+altogether strangers to each other. Robert's father and William
+Barksdale's mother were brother and sister, and Shirley, the old
+Virginian homestead, which had been in the family for nearly two
+centuries, had passed to young Barksdale's mother by the voluntary act
+of Robert's father when, upon coming of age, he had gone west to try his
+fortune in a busier world than that of the Old Dominion. The two boys,
+William and Robert, had corresponded quite regularly in boyhood and
+quite irregularly after they grew up, and so they knew each other pretty
+well, though, as I have said, they had never met.
+
+"I am glad, very glad to see you, William," said Robert as he grasped
+his cousin's hand.
+
+"Now don't, I beg of you. Call me Billy, or Will, or anything else you
+choose, old fellow, but don't call me William, whatever you do. Nobody
+ever did but father, and he never did except of mornings when I wouldn't
+get up. Then he'd sing out 'Will-_yum_' with a sort of a horsewhip snap
+at the end of it. 'William' always reminds me of disturbed slumbers.
+Call me Billy, and I'll call you Bob. I'll do that anyhow, so you might
+as well fall into familiar ways. But come, tell me how you are and all
+about yourself. You haven't written to me since the flood; forgot to
+receive my last letter I suppose."
+
+"Probably I did. I have been forgetting a good many things. But I hope I
+have not kept you too long from your breakfast, and especially that I
+have not made you 'as cross as a twenty dollar bank-note.' Pray tell me
+what you meant by that figure of speech, will you not? I am curious to
+know where you got it and why."
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed Billy. "You'll have a lively time of it if you mean to
+unravel all my metaphors. Let me see. I must have referred to the big
+X's they print on the bank bills, or something of that sort. But let's
+go to breakfast at once. I'm as hungry as a village editor. We can talk
+over a beefsteak, or you can at least. I mean to be as still as a
+mill-pond of a cloudy night while you tell me all about yourself."
+
+And over their breakfast they talked. But in telling his story, while he
+remembered to mention all the details of his situation losing and his
+situation getting, Mr. Robert somehow forgot to say anything about his
+other disappointment. He soon learned to know and to like his cousin,
+and, which was more to the purpose, he began to enjoy him right
+heartily, in his own way, bantering him on his queer uses of English,
+half in sport, half in earnest, until the Virginian declared that they
+had grown as familiar with each other "as a pair of Irishmen at a
+wake."
+
+"I suppose you're off at once for your new place, a'n't you? This is
+September," said Billy after his cousin had finished so much of his
+story as he cared to reveal.
+
+"No," said Robert. "My duties will not begin until January, and meantime
+I must go off on a tramp somewhere to get my muscles, physical and
+financial, up again. To tell the truth I have been dawdling at Cape May
+this summer instead of going off to the mountains or the prairies, as I
+usually do, for a healthful and economical foot journey, and the result
+is that my legs and arms are sadly run down. I have been spending too
+much money too, and so cannot afford to stay around Philadelphia until
+January. I think I must go off to some of the mountain counties, where
+the people think five dollars a fortune and call anything less than a
+precipice rising ground."
+
+"Well, I reckon you won't," said the Virginian; "I've been inviting you
+to the 'home of your fathers' ever since I was born, and this is the
+very first time I ever got you to own up to a scrap of leisure as big as
+your thumb nail. I've got you now with nothing to do and nowhere to go,
+and I mean to take you with me this very evening to Virginia. We'll
+leave on the eleven o'clock train to-night, get to Richmond to-morrow at
+two, and go up home next morning in time for snack."
+
+"But, my dear Billy----"
+
+"But, my dear Bob, I won't hear a word, and I won't take no for an
+answer. That's poz roz and the king's English. I'm managing this little
+job. You can give up your rooms to-day, sell out your plunder, and stop
+expenses. Then you needn't open your pocket-book again for so long that
+you'll forget how it looks inside. Put a few ninepences into your
+breeches pocket to throw at darkeys when they hold your horse, and the
+thing's done. And won't we wake up old Shirley? I tell you it's the
+delightfulest two hundred year old establishment you ever saw or didn't
+see. As the Irish attorney said of his ancestral home: 'there isn't a
+table in the house that hasn't had jigs danced upon it, and there's not
+a chair that you can't throw at a friend's head without the slightest
+fear of breaking it.' When we get there we'll have as much fun as a pack
+of hounds on a fresh trail."
+
+"Upon my word, Billy," said the professor cousin, "your metaphors have
+the merits of freshness and originality, at the least, though now and
+then, as in the present instance, they are certainly not very
+complimentary. However, it just occurs to me that I have been wanting to
+go to Shirley 'ever since I was born,' if you will allow me to borrow
+one of your forcible phrases, and this really does seem to be a
+peculiarly good opportunity to do so. I am a good deal interested in
+dialects and provincialisms, so it would be worth my while to visit you,
+if for no other reason, because my stay at Shirley will give me an
+excellent opportunity to study some of your own expressions. 'Poz roz,'
+now, is entirely new to me, and I might make something out of it in a
+philological way."
+
+"Upon my word" said Mr. Billy, "that's a polite speech. If you'll only
+say you'll go, though, I don't care the value of a herring's left fore
+foot what use you make of me. I'm yours to command and ready for any
+sport that suits you, unless you take a notion to throw rocks at me."
+
+"Pray tell me, Billy, do Virginians ever throw rocks? I am interested in
+muscle, and should greatly like to see some one able to throw rocks. I
+have paid half a dollar many a time to see a man lift extraordinary
+weights, but the best of the showmen never dream of handling anything
+heavier than cannon-balls. It would be decidedly entertaining to see a
+man throwing rocks and things of that sort about, even if he were to use
+both hands in doing it."
+
+"Nonsense," said Billy; "I'm not one of your students getting a
+dictionary lesson. Waiter!"
+
+"What will you have, sir?" asked the waiter.
+
+"Some hot biscuit, please."
+
+"They a'n't no hot biscuits, sir."
+
+"Well some hot rolls then, or hot bread of some sort. Cold bread for
+breakfast is an abomination."
+
+"They a'n't no hot bread in the house, sir. We never keep none. Hot
+bread a'n't healthy, sir."
+
+"You impertinent----"
+
+"My dear Billy," said Mr. Bob, "pray keep your temper. 'Impertinent' is
+not the word you wish to use. The _man_ can not well be impertinent. He
+is a trifle impudent, I admit, but we can afford to overlook the
+impudence of his remark for the sake of the philological interest it
+has. Waiter, you ought to know, inasmuch as you have been brought up in
+a land of free schools, that two negatives, in English, destroy each
+other, and are equivalent to an affirmative; but the matter in which I
+am most interested just now is your remark that hot bread is not
+_healthy_. Your statement is perfectly true, and it would have been
+equally true if you had omitted the qualifying adjective 'hot.' No bread
+can be 'healthy,' because health and disease are not attributes or
+conditions of inanimate things. You probably meant, however, that hot
+bread is not wholesome, a point on which my friend here, who eats hot
+bread every day of his life, would naturally take issue with you. Please
+bring us some buttered toast."
+
+The waiter went away bewildered--questioning the sanity of Mr. Bob in
+all probability; a questioning in which Billy was half inclined to join
+him.
+
+"What on earth do you mean, Bob, by talking in that way to a waiter who
+don't know the meaning of one word in five that you use?"
+
+"Well, I meant for one thing to keep you from losing your temper and so
+spoiling your digestion. Human motives are complicated affairs, and
+hence I am by no means sure that I can further unravel my purpose in
+this case."
+
+"Return we to our muttons, then," said Billy; "I'll finish the business
+that brought me here, which is only to be present at the taking of a
+short deposition, by two or three o'clock. While I'm at it you can get
+your traps together, send your trunk to the depot, and get back here to
+dinner by four. Then we must get through the rest of the time the best
+way we can, and at eleven we'll be off. I'm crazy to see you with Phil
+once."
+
+"Phil, who is he?"
+
+"Oh! Phil is a character--a colored one. I want to see how his 'dialect'
+will affect you. I'm half afraid you'll go crazy, though, under it."
+
+"Tell me--"
+
+"No, I won't describe Phil, because I can't, and no more can anybody
+else. Phil must be seen to be appreciated. But come, I'm off for the
+notary's, and you must get you gone too, for you mustn't be late at
+dinner--that's poz."
+
+With this the two young men separated, the Virginian lawyer to attend to
+the taking of some depositions, and his cousin to surrender his
+lodgings, pack his trunk, and make such other arrangements as were
+necessary for his journey.
+
+This opportunity to visit the old homestead where his father had passed
+his boyhood was peculiarly welcome to Mr. Robert just now. There had
+always been to him a sort of glamour about the names Virginia and
+Shirley. His father's stories about his own childhood had made a deep
+impression on the mind of the boy, and to him Shirley was a palace and
+Virginia a fairy land. Whenever, in childhood, he was allowed to call a
+calf or a pig his own, he straightway bestowed upon it one or the other
+of the charmed names, and fancied that the animal grew stronger and more
+beautiful as a consequence. He had always intended to go to Shirley, but
+had never done so; just as you and I, reader, have always meant to do
+several scores of things that we have never done, though we can hardly
+say why. Just now, however, Mr. Billy's plan for his cousin was more
+than ever agreeable to Mr. Robert for various present and unusual
+reasons. He knew next to nobody in or about Philadelphia outside the
+precincts of the collegiate institute, and to hunt up acquaintances
+inside that institution was naturally enough not exactly to his taste.
+He had several months of time to dispose of in some way, and until Billy
+suggested the visit to Virginia, the best he had been able to do in the
+way of devising a time-killer was to plan a solitary wandering among the
+mountainous districts of Pennsylvania. Ordinarily he would have enjoyed
+such a journey very much, but just now he knew that Mr. Robert Pagebrook
+could hardly find a less agreeable companion than Mr. Robert Pagebrook
+himself. That little affair with Miss Nellie Currier kept coming up in
+his memory, and if the reader be a man it is altogether probable that he
+knows precisely how the memory of that story affected our young
+gentleman. He wanted company, and he wanted change, and he wanted
+out-door exercise, and where could he find all these quite so abundant
+as at an old Virginian country house? His love for Miss Nellie, he was
+sure, was a very genuine one; but he was equally sure that it was
+hopeless. Indeed, now that he knew the selfish insincerity of the damsel
+he did not even wish that his suit had prospered. This, at any rate, is
+what he thought, as you did, my dear sir, when you first learned what
+the word "Another" means when printed with a big A; and, thinking this,
+he felt that the first thing to be done in the matter was to forget
+Miss Nellie and his love for her as speedily as possible. How far he
+succeeded in doing this we shall probably see in the sequel. At present
+we have to do with the attempt only. New scenes and new people, Mr.
+Pagebrook thought, would greatly aid him in his purpose, and so the trip
+to Virginia seemed peculiarly fitting. It thus comes about that the
+scene of this young man's story suddenly shifts from Philadelphia to a
+Virginian country house, in spite of all I can do to preserve the
+dramatic unity of place. Ah! if I were _making_ this story now, I could
+confine it to a single room, compress its action into a single day, and
+do other dramatic and highly proper things; but as Mr. Robert Pagebrook
+and his friends were not stage people, and, moreover, as they were not
+aware that their goings and comings would ever weave themselves into the
+woof of a story at all, they utterly failed to regulate their actions in
+accordance with critical rules, and went roving about over the country
+quite in a natural way and without the slightest regard for my
+convenience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook learns something about the Customs of the Country._
+
+
+When our two young men reached the station at which they were to leave
+the cars, they found awaiting them there the lumbering old carriage
+which had been a part of the Shirley establishment ever since Mr. Billy
+could remember. This vehicle was known to everybody in the neighborhood
+as the Shirley carriage, not because it was older or clumsier or uglier
+than its fellows, for indeed it was not, but merely because every
+carriage in a Virginian neighborhood is known to everybody quite as well
+as its owner is. To Mr. Robert Pagebrook, however, the vehicle presented
+itself as an antique and a curiosity. Its body was suspended by leathern
+straps which came out of some high semicircular springs at the back, and
+it was thus raised so far above the axles that one could enter it only
+by mounting quite a stairway of steps, which unfolded themselves from
+its interior. Swinging thus by its leathern straps, the great heavy
+carriage body really seemed to have no support at all, and Mr. Robert
+found it necessary to exercise all the faith there was in him in order
+to believe that to get inside of the vehicle was not a sure and speedy
+way of securing two or three broken bones. He got in, however, at his
+cousin's invitation, and soon discovered that although the motion of the
+suspended carriage body closely resembled that of a fore and aft
+schooner in a gale, it was by no means unpleasant, as the worst that the
+roughest road could do was to make the vibratory motion a trifle more
+decided than usual in its nature. A jolt was simply impossible.
+
+As soon as he got his sea legs on sufficiently to keep himself tolerably
+steady on his seat, Mr. Rob began to look at the country or, more
+properly, to study the road-side, there being little else visible, so
+thickly grew the trees and underbrush on each side.
+
+"How far must we drive before reaching Shirley?" he asked after awhile,
+as the carriage stopped for the opening of a gate.
+
+"About four miles now," said his cousin. "It's five miles, or nearly
+that, from the Court House."
+
+"The court house? Where is that?"
+
+"O the village where we left the train! That's the Court House."
+
+"Ah! you Virginians call a village a court house, do you?"
+
+"Certainly, when it's the county-seat and a'n't much else. Now and then
+court houses put on airs and call themselves names, but they don't often
+make much of it. There's Powhatan Court House now, I believe it tried to
+get itself called 'Scottsville,' or something of that sort, but nobody
+knows it as anything but Powhatan Court House. Our county-seat has
+always been modest, and if it has any name I never heard of it."
+
+"That's one interesting custom of the country, at any rate. Pray tell
+me, is it another of your customs to dispense wholly with public roads?
+I ask for information merely, and the question is suggested by the fact
+that we seem to have driven away from the Court House by the private
+road which we are still following."
+
+"Why, this isn't a private road. It's one of the principal public roads
+of the county."
+
+"How about these gates then?" asked Robert as the negro boy who rode
+behind the carriage jumped down to open another.
+
+"Well, what about them?"
+
+"Why, I never saw a gate across a public thoroughfare before. Do you
+really permit such things in Virginia?"
+
+"O yes! certainly. It saves a great deal of fencing, and the Court never
+refuses permission to put up a gate in any reasonable place, only the
+owner is bound to make it easy to open on horseback--or, as you would
+put it, 'by a person riding on horseback.' You see I'm growing
+circumspect in my choice of words since I've been with you. May be
+you'll reform us all, and make us talk tolerably good English before you
+go back. If you do, I'll give you some 'testimonials' to your worth as a
+professor."
+
+"But about those gates, Billy. I am all the more interested in them now
+that I know them as another 'custom of the country.' How do their owners
+keep them shut? Don't people leave them open pretty often?"
+
+"Never; a Virginian is always 'on honor' so far as his neighbors are
+concerned, and the man who would leave a neighbor's gate open might as
+well take to stealing at once for all the difference it would make in
+his social standing."
+
+It was not only the gates, but the general appearance of the road as
+well, that astonished young Pagebrook: a public road, consisting of a
+single carriage track, with a grass plat on each side, fringed with
+thick undergrowth and overhung by the branches of great trees, was to
+him a novelty, and a very pleasant novelty too, in which he was greatly
+interested.
+
+"Who lives there?" asked Robert, as a large house came into view.
+
+"That's The Oaks, Cousin Edwin's place."
+
+"And who is your Cousin Edwin?"
+
+"_My_ Cousin Edwin? He's yours too, I reckon. Cousin Edwin Pagebrook. He
+is our second cousin or, as the old ladies put it, first cousin once
+removed."
+
+"Pray tell me what a first cousin once removed is, will you not, Billy?
+I am wholly ignorant on the subject of cousinhood in its higher
+branches, and as I understand that a good deal of stress is laid upon
+relationships of this sort in Virginia, I should like to inform myself
+in advance if possible."
+
+"I really don't know whether I can or not. Any of the old ladies will
+lay it all out to you, illustrating it with their keys arranged like a
+genealogical tree. I don't know much about it, but I reckon I can make
+you understand this much, as I have Cousin Edwin's case to go by. It's a
+'case in point' as we lawyers say. Let's see. Cousin Edwin's
+grandfather was our great grandfather; then his father was our
+grandfather's brother, and that makes him first cousin to my mother and
+your father. Now I would call mother's first cousin my second cousin,
+but the old ladies, who pay a good deal of attention to these matters,
+say not. They say that my mother's or my father's first cousin is my
+first cousin once removed, and his children are my second cousins, and
+they prove it all, too, with their keys."
+
+"Well then," asked Robert, "if that is so, what is the exact
+relationship between Cousin Edwin's children and my father or your
+mother?"
+
+"O don't! You bewilder me. I told you I didn't know anything about it.
+You must get some old lady to explain it with her keys, and when she
+gets through you won't know who you are, to save you."
+
+"That is encouraging, certainly," said Mr. Robert.
+
+"O it's no matter! You're safe enough in calling everybody around here
+'cousin' if you're sure they a'n't any closer kin. The fact is, all the
+best families here have intermarried so often that the relationships are
+all mixed up, and we always claim kin when there is any ghost of a
+chance for it. Besides, the Pagebrooks are the biggest tadpoles in the
+puddle; and so, if they don't 'cousin' all their kin-folks people think
+they're stuck-up."
+
+"Thank you, Billy; but tell me, am I, being a Pagebrook, under any
+consequent obligation to consider myself a tadpole during my stay in
+Virginia?"
+
+Billy's only answer was a laugh.
+
+"Now, Billy," Robert resumed, "tell me about the people of Shirley. I
+am sadly ignorant, you understand, and I do not wish to make mistakes.
+Begin at top, and tell me how I shall call them all."
+
+"Well, there's father; you will call him Uncle Carter, of course. He is
+Col. Carter Barksdale, you know."
+
+"I knew his name was Carter, of course, but I did not know he had ever
+been a military man."
+
+"A military man! No, he never was. What made you think that?"
+
+"Why you called him 'Colonel.'"
+
+"O that's nothing! You'll find every gentleman past middle age wearing
+some sort of title or other. They call father 'Colonel Barksdale,' and
+Cousin Edwin 'Major Pagebrook,' though neither of them ever saw a tent
+that I know of."
+
+"Ah! another interesting custom of the country. But pray go on."
+
+"Well, mother is 'Aunt Mary,' you know, and then there's Aunt
+Catherine."
+
+"Indeed! who is she? Is she my aunt?"
+
+"I really don't know. Let me see. No, I reckon not; nor mine either, for
+that matter. I think she's father's fourth or fifth cousin, with a
+remove or two added, possibly, but you must call her 'Aunt' anyhow; we
+all do, and she'd never forgive you if you didn't. You see she knew your
+father, and I reckon he called her 'Aunt.' It's a way we have here. She
+is a maiden lady, you understand, and Shirley is her home. You'll find
+somebody of that sort in nearly every house, and they're a delightful
+sort of somebody, too, to have round. She'll post you up on
+relationships. She can use up a whole key-basket full of keys, and run
+'em over by name backwards or forwards, just as you please. You needn't
+follow her though if you object to a headache. All you've got to do is
+to let her tell you about it, and you say 'yes' now and then. She puts
+me through every week or so. Then there's Cousin Sudie, my father's
+niece and ward. She's been an orphan almost all her life, and so she's
+always lived with us. Father is her guardian, and he always calls her
+'daughter.' You'll call her 'Cousin Sue,' of course."
+
+"Then she is akin to me too, is she?"
+
+"Of course. She's father's own brother's child."
+
+"But, Billy, your father is only my uncle by marriage, and I do not
+understand how----"
+
+"O bother! If you're going to count it up, I reckon there a'n't any real
+relationship; but she's your cousin, anyhow, and you'll offend her if
+you refuse to own it. Call her 'Cousin,' and be done with it."
+
+"Being one of the large Pagebrook tadpoles, I suppose I must. However,
+in the case of a young lady, I shall not find it difficult, I dare
+say."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook makes Some Acquaintances._
+
+
+Mr. Robert had often heard of "an Old Virginian welcome," but precisely
+what constituted it he never knew until the carriage in which he rode
+drove around the "circle" and stopped in front of the Shirley mansion.
+The first thing which struck him as peculiar about the preparations made
+for his reception was the large number of small negroes who thought
+their presence necessary to the occasion. Little black faces grinned at
+him from behind every tree, and about a dozen of them peered out from a
+safe position behind "ole mas'r and ole missus." Mr. Billy had
+telegraphed from Richmond announcing the coming of his guest, and so
+every darkey on the plantation knew that "Mas' Joe's son" was "a comin'
+wid Mas' Billy from de Norf," and every one that could find a safe
+hiding place in the yard was there to see him come.
+
+Col. Barksdale met him at the carriage while the ladies were in waiting
+on the porch, as anybody but a Virginian would put it--_in_ the porch,
+as they themselves would have phrased it. The welcome was of the right
+hearty order which nobody ever saw outside of Virginia--a welcome which
+made the guest feel himself at once a very part of the establishment.
+
+Inside the house our young friend found himself sorely puzzled. The
+furniture was old in style but very elegant, a thing for which he was
+fully prepared, but it stood upon absolutely bare white floors. There
+were both damask and lace curtains at the windows, but not a vestige of
+carpet was anywhere to be seen. Mr. Robert said nothing, but wondered
+silently whether it was possible that he had arrived in the midst of
+house-cleaning. Conversation, luncheon, and finally dinner at four,
+occupied his attention, however, and after dinner the whole family
+gathered in the porch--for really I believe the Virginians are right
+about that preposition. I will ask Mr. Robert himself some day.
+
+He soon found himself thoroughly at home in the old family mansion,
+among relatives who had never been strangers to him in any proper sense
+of the term. Not only was Mrs. Barksdale his father's sister, but Col.
+Barksdale himself had been that father's nearest friend. The two had
+gone west together to seek their fortunes there; but the Colonel had
+returned after a few years to practice his profession in his native
+state and ultimately to marry his friend's sister. Mr. Robert soon felt
+himself literally at home, therefore, and the feeling was intensely
+enjoyable, too, to a young man who for ten years had not known any home
+other than that of a bachelor's quarters in a college community. His
+reception at Shirley had not been the greeting of a guest but rather the
+welcoming of a long wandering son of the house. To his relatives there
+he seemed precisely that, and their feeling in the case soon became his
+own. This "clannishness," as it is called, may not be peculiar to
+Virginia of all the states, but I have never seen it half so strongly
+manifested anywhere else as there.
+
+Toward evening Maj. Pagebrook and his son Ewing rode over to call upon
+their cousin Robert, and after the introductions were over, "Cousin
+Edwin" went on to talk of Robert's father, for whom he had felt an
+unusual degree of affection, as all the relatives had, for that matter,
+Robert's father having been an especial favorite in the family. Then the
+conversation became more general.
+
+"When are you going to cut that field of tobacco by the prize barn,
+Cousin Edwin?" asked Billy. "I see it's ripening pretty rapidly."
+
+"Yes, it is getting pretty ripe in spots, and I wanted to put the hands
+into it yesterday," replied Maj. Pagebrook; "but Sarah Ann thought we'd
+better keep them plowing for wheat a day or two longer, and now I'm
+afraid it's going to rain before I can get a first cutting done."
+
+"How much did you get for the tobacco you sent to Richmond the other
+day, Edwin?" asked the colonel.
+
+"Only five dollars and three cents a hundred, average."
+
+"You'd have done a good deal better if you'd sold in the spring,
+wouldn't you?"
+
+"Yes, a good deal. I wanted to sell then, but Sarah Ann insisted on
+holding it till fall. By the way, I'm going to put all my lots, except
+the one by the creek, in corn next year, and raise hardly any tobacco."
+
+"All but the creek lot? Why that's the only good corn land you have,
+Edwin, and it isn't safe to put tobacco in it either, for it overflows a
+little."
+
+"Yes, I know it. But Sarah Ann is discouraged by the price we got for
+tobacco this year, and doesn't want me to plant the lots next season at
+all."
+
+"Why didn't you bring Cousin Sarah Ann over and come to dinner to-day,
+Cousin Edwin?" asked Miss Barksdale, coming out of the dining-room,
+key-basket in hand, to speak to the guests.
+
+"Oh! we've only one carriage horse now, you know. I sold the black last
+week, and haven't been able to find another yet."
+
+"Sold the black! Why, what was that for, Cousin Ed! I thought you
+specially liked him?" said Billy.
+
+"So I did; but Sarah Ann didn't like a black and a gray together, and
+she wouldn't let me sell the gray on any terms, though I could have
+matched the black at once. Winger has a colt well broken that's a
+perfect match for him. Come, Ewing, we must be going. Sarah Ann said we
+must be home to tea without fail. You'll come to The Oaks, Robert, of
+course. Sarah Ann will expect you very soon, and you mustn't stand on
+ceremony, you know, but come as often as you can while you stay at
+Shirley."
+
+"What do you think of Cousin Edwin, Bob?" asked Billy when the guests
+had gone.
+
+"That he is a very excellent person, and----"
+
+"And what? Speak out. Let's hear what you think."
+
+"Well, that he is a very dutiful husband."
+
+"Bob, I'd give a pretty for your knack at saying things. Your tongue's
+as soft as a feather bed. But wait till you know the madam. You'll
+say----"
+
+"My son, you shouldn't prejudice Robert against people he doesn't know.
+Sarah Ann has many good qualities--I suppose."
+
+"Well, then, I don't suppose anything of the sort, else she would have
+found out how good a man Cousin Edwin is long ago, and would have
+behaved herself better every way."
+
+"William, you are uncharitable!"
+
+"Not a bit of it, mother. Your charity is like a microscope when it is
+hunting for something good to say of people. Did you ever hear of the
+dead Dutchman?"
+
+"Do pray, Billy, don't tell me any of your anecdotes now."
+
+"Just this one, mother. There was a dead Dutchman who had been the worst
+Dutchman in the business. When the people came to sit up with his
+corpse--don't run, mother, I'm nearly through--they couldn't find
+anything good to say about him, and as they didn't want to say anything
+bad there was a profound silence in the room. Finally one old Dutchman,
+heaving a sigh, remarked: 'Vell, Hans vas vone goot schmoker, anyhow.'
+Let me see. Cousin Sarah Ann gives good dinners, anyhow, only she piles
+too much on the table. See how charitable I am, mother. I have actually
+found and designated the madam's one good point."
+
+"Come, come, my son," said the colonel, "you shouldn't talk so."
+
+Shortly after tea the two young men pleaded the weariness of travelers
+in excuse for an early bed going. Mr. Bob was offered his choice between
+occupying alone the Blue Room, which is the state guest chamber in most
+Virginian houses, and taking a bed in Billy's room. He promptly chose
+the latter, and when they were alone, he turned to his cousin and asked:
+
+"Billy, have you such a thing as a dictionary about?"
+
+"Nothing but a law dictionary, I believe. Will that do?"
+
+"Really I do not know. Perhaps it might."
+
+"What do you want to find?" asked Billy.
+
+"I only wish to ascertain whether or not we arrived here in time for
+'snack.' You said we would, I believe."
+
+"Well, we did, didn't we?"
+
+"That is precisely what I wish to find out. Having never heard of
+'snack' until you mentioned it as one of the things we should find at
+Shirley, I have been curious to know what it is like, and so I have been
+watching for it ever since we got here. Pray tell me what it is?"
+
+"Well, that's a good one. I must tell Sudie that, and get her to
+introduce you formally to-morrow."
+
+"It is another interesting custom of the country, I suppose."
+
+"Indeed it is; and it isn't one of those customs that are 'more honored
+in the breach than the observance,' either."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook makes a Good Impression._
+
+
+Young Pagebrook was an early riser. Not that he was afflicted with one
+of those unfortunate consciences which make of early rising a penance,
+by any means. He was not prejudiced against lying abed, nor bigoted
+about getting up. He quoted no adages on the subject, and was not
+illogical enough to believe that getting up early and yawning for an
+hour or two every morning would bring health, wisdom, or wealth to
+anybody. In short, he was an early riser not on principle but of
+necessity. Somehow his eyelids had a way of popping themselves open
+about sunrise or earlier, and his great brawny limbs could not be kept
+in bed long after this happened. He got up for precisely the same reason
+that most people lie abed, namely, because there was nothing else to do.
+On the morning after his arrival at Shirley he awoke early and heard two
+things which attracted his attention. The first was a sound which
+puzzled him more than a little. It was a steady, monotonous scraping of
+a most unaccountable kind--somewhat like the sound of a carpenter's
+plane and somewhat like that of a saw. Had it been out of doors he
+would have thought nothing of it; but clearly it was in the house, and
+not only so, but in every part of the house except the bedrooms. Scrape,
+scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape. What it meant he could not guess. As he
+lay there wondering about it he heard another sound, greatly more
+musical, at which he jumped out of bed and began dressing, wondering at
+this sound, too, quite as much as at the other, though he knew perfectly
+well that this was nothing more than a human voice--Miss Sudie's, to
+wit. He wondered if there ever was such a voice before or ever would be
+again. Not that the young woman was singing, for she was doing nothing
+of the sort. She was merely giving some directions to the servants about
+household matters, but her voice was music nevertheless, and Mr. Bob
+made up his mind to hear it to better advantage by going down-stairs at
+once. Now I happen to know that this young woman's voice was in no way
+peculiar to herself. Every well-bred girl in Virginia has the same rich,
+full, soft tone, and they all say, as she did, "grauss," "glauss"
+"bausket," "cyarpet," "cyart," "gyarden," and "gyirl." But it so
+happened that Mr. Bob had never heard a Virginian girl talk before he
+met Miss Barksdale, and to him her rich German a's and the musical tones
+of her voice were peculiarly her own. Perhaps all these things would
+have impressed him differently if "Cousin Sudie" had been an ugly girl.
+I have no means of determining the point, inasmuch as "Cousin Sudie" was
+certainly anything else than ugly.
+
+Mr. Robert made a hasty toilet and descended to the great hall, or
+passage, as they call it in Virginia. As he did so he discovered the
+origin of the scraping sound which had puzzled him, as it puzzles
+everybody else who hears it for the first time. Dry "pine tags" (which
+is Virginian for the needles of the pine) were scattered all over the
+floors, and several negro women were busy polishing the hard white
+planks by rubbing them with an indescribable implement made of a section
+of log, a dozen corn husks ("shucks," the Virginians call them--a "corn
+husk" in Virginia signifying a _cob_ always), and a pole for handle.
+
+"Good morning, Cousin Robert. You're up soon," said the little woman,
+coming out of the dining-room and putting a soft, warm little hand in
+his great palm.
+
+Now to young Pagebrook this was a totally new use of the word "soon,"
+and I dare say he would have been greatly interested in it but for the
+fact that the trim little woman who stood there, key-basket in hand,
+interested him more.
+
+"You've caught me in the midst of my housekeeping, but never mind; only
+be careful, or you'll slip on the pine tags; they're as slippery as
+glass."
+
+"And is that the reason they are scattered on the floor?"
+
+"Yes, we polish with them. Up North you wax your floors instead, don't
+you?"
+
+"Yes, for balls and the like, I believe, but commonly we have carpets."
+
+"What! in summer time, too?"
+
+"O yes! certainly, Why not?"
+
+"Why, they're so warm. We take ours up soon in the spring, and never put
+them down again until fall."
+
+This time Mr. Robert observed the queer use of the word "soon," but said
+nothing about it. He said instead:
+
+"What a lovely morning it is! How I should like to ride horseback in
+this air!"
+
+"Would you let me ride with you?" asked the little maiden.
+
+"Such a question, Cousin Sudie!"
+
+Now I am free to confess that this last remark was unworthy Mr.
+Pagebrook. If not ungrammatical, it is at least of questionable
+construction, and so not at all like Mr. Pagebrook's usage. But the
+demoralizing effect of Miss Sudie Barksdale's society did not stop here
+by any means, as we shall see in due time.
+
+"If you'd really like to ride, I'll have the horses brought," said the
+little lady.
+
+"And you with me?"
+
+"Yes, if I may."
+
+"I shall be more than happy."
+
+"Dick, run up to the barn and tell Uncle Polidore to saddle Patty for me
+and Graybeard for your Mas' Robert. Do you hear? Excuse me, Cousin
+Robert, and I'll put on my habit."
+
+Ten minutes later the pair reined in their horses on the top of a little
+hill, to look at the sunrise. The morning was just cool enough to be
+thoroughly pleasant, and the exhilaration which comes of nothing else so
+surely as of rapid riding began to tell upon the spirits of both.
+Cousin Sudie was a good rider and a graceful one, and she knew it.
+Robert's riding hitherto had been done, for the most part, in cities,
+and on smooth roads; but he held his horse with a firm hand, and
+controlled him perforce of a strong will, which, with great personal
+fearlessness and a habit of doing well whatever he undertook to do at
+all, and undertaking whatever was expected of him, abundantly supplied
+the lack he had of experience in the rougher riding of Virginia on the
+less perfectly trained horses in use there. He was a stalwart fellow,
+with shapely limbs and perfect ease of movement, so that on horseback he
+was a very agreeable young gentleman to look at, a fact of which Miss
+Sudie speedily became conscious. Her rides were chiefly without a
+cavalier, as they were usually taken early in the morning before her
+cousin Billy thought of getting up; and naturally enough she enjoyed the
+presence of so agreeable a young gentleman as Mr. Rob certainly was, and
+her enjoyment of his company--she being a woman--was not diminished in
+the least by the discovery that to his intellectual and social
+accomplishments, which were very genuine, there were added a handsome
+face, a comely person, and a manly enthusiasm for out-door exercise.
+When he pulled some wild flowers which grew by the road-side without
+dismounting--a trick he had picked up somewhere--she wondered at the
+ease and grace with which it was done; when he added to the flowers a
+little cluster of purple berries from a wild vine, of which I do not
+know the name, and a sprig of sumac, still wet with dew, she admired his
+taste; and when he gallantly asked leave to twine the whole into her
+hair, for her hat had come off, as good-looking young women's hats
+always do on such occasions, she thought him "just nice."
+
+It is really astonishing how rapidly acquaintanceships form under
+favorable circumstances. These two young people were shy, both of them,
+and on the preceding day had hardly spoken to each other at all. When
+they mounted their horses that morning they were almost strangers, and
+they might have remained only half acquaintances for a week or a
+fortnight but for that morning's ride. They were gone an hour, perhaps,
+in all, and when they sat down to breakfast they were on terms of easy
+familiarity and genuine friendship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Learns Several Things._
+
+
+After breakfast Robert walked out with Billy to see the negroes at work
+cutting tobacco, an interesting operation always, and especially so when
+one sees it for the first time.
+
+"Gilbert," said Billy to his "head man," "did you find any ripe enough
+to cut in the lot there by the prize barn?"
+
+"No sah; dat's de greenest lot of tobawkah on de plantation, for all
+'twas plaunted fust. I dunno what to make uv it."
+
+"Why, Billy, I thought Cousin Edwin owned the 'prize' barn!" said
+Robert.
+
+"So he does--his."
+
+"Are there two of them then?"
+
+"Two of them? What do you mean? Every plantation has its prize barn, of
+course."
+
+"Indeed! Who gives the prizes?"
+
+"Ha! ha! Bob, that's good; only you'd better ask _me_ always when you
+want to know about things here, else you'll get yourself laughed at. A
+prize barn is simply the barn in which we prize tobacco."
+
+"And what is 'prizing' tobacco?"
+
+"Possibly 'prize' a'n't good English, Bob, but it's the standard
+Ethiopian for pressing, and everybody here uses it. We press the tobacco
+in hogsheads, you know, and we call it prizing. It never struck me as a
+peculiarly Southern use of the word, but perhaps it is for all that.
+You're as sharp set as a circular saw after dialect, a'n't you?"
+
+"I really do not know precisely how sharp set a circular saw is, but I
+am greatly interested in your peculiar uses of English, certainly."
+
+Upon returning to the house Billy said:
+
+"Bob I must let you take care of yourself for two or three hours now, as
+I have some papers to draw up and they won't wait. Next week is court
+week, and I've got a great deal to do between now and then. But you're
+at home you know, old fellow."
+
+So saying Mr. Billy went to his office, which was situated in the yard,
+while Robert strolled into the house. Looking into the dining-room he
+saw there Cousin Sudie. Possibly the young gentleman was looking for
+her. I am sure I do not know. But whether he had expected to find her
+there or not, he certainly felt some little surprise as he looked at
+her.
+
+"Why, Cousin Sudie, is it possible that you are washing the dishes?"
+
+"O certainly! and the plates and cups too. In fact, I wash up all the
+things once a day."
+
+"Pray tell me, cousin, precisely what you understand by 'dishes,' if I'm
+not intruding," said Robert.
+
+"O not at all! come in and sit down. You'll find it pleasanter there by
+the window. 'Dishes?' Why, that is a dish, and that and that," pointing
+to them.
+
+"I see. The word 'dishes' is not a generic term in Virginia, but applies
+only to platters and vegetable dishes. What do you call them in the
+aggregate, Cousin Sudie? I mean plates, platters, cups, saucers, and
+everything."
+
+"Why 'things,' I suppose. We speak of 'breakfast things,' 'tea things,'
+'dinner things.' But why were you astonished to see me washing them,
+Cousin Robert?"
+
+"Perhaps I ought to have known better, but the fact is I had an
+impression that Southern ladies were wholly exempt from all work except,
+perhaps, a little embroidery or some such thing."
+
+"O my! I wish you could see me during circuit court week, when Uncle
+Carter and Cousin Billy bring the judge and the lawyers home with them
+at all sorts of odd hours; and they always bring the hungriest ones
+there are too. I fall at once into a chronic state of washing up things,
+and don't recover until court is over."
+
+[Illustration: "I FALL AT ONCE INTO A CHRONIC STATE UP WASHING UP
+THINGS."]
+
+"But really, cousin--pardon me if I am inquisitive, for I am greatly
+interested in this life here in Virginia, it is so new to me--how is it
+that _you_ must wash up things at all?"
+
+"Why, I carry the keys, you know. I'm housekeeper."
+
+"Well, but you have servants enough, certainly, and to spare."
+
+"O yes! but every lady washes up the things at least once a day. It
+would never do to trust it altogether to the servants, you know."
+
+"None of them are sufficiently careful and trustworthy, do you mean?"
+
+"Well, not exactly that; but it's our way here, and if a lady were to
+neglect it people would think her a poor housekeeper."
+
+"Are there any other duties devolving upon Virginian housekeepers
+besides 'washing up things?' You see I am trying to learn all I can of a
+life which is as charmingly strange to me as that of Turkey or China
+would be if I were to go to either country."
+
+"Any other duties? Indeed there are, and you shall learn what they are,
+if you won't find it stupid to go my rounds with me. I'm going now."
+
+"I should find dullness itself interesting with you as my fellow
+observer of it."
+
+"Right gallantly said, kind sir," said Miss Sudie, with an exaggerated
+curtsy. "But if you're going to make pretty speeches I'll get impudent
+directly. I'm dreadfully given to it anyhow, and I've a notion to say
+one impudent thing right now."
+
+"Pray do. I pardon you in advance."
+
+"Well, then, what makes you say 'Virginian housekeepers?'"
+
+"What else should I say?"
+
+"Why, Virginia housekeepers, of course, like anybody else."
+
+"But 'Virginia' is not an adjective, cousin. You would not say 'England
+housekeepers' or 'France housekeepers,' would you?" asked Robert.
+
+"No, but I would say 'New York housekeepers,' 'Massachusetts
+housekeepers,' or 'New Jersey housekeepers,' and so I say 'Virginia
+housekeepers,' too. I reckon you would find it a little troublesome to
+carry out your rule, wouldn't you, Cousin Robert?"
+
+"I am fairly beaten, I own; and in consideration of my frank
+acknowledgment of defeat, perhaps you will permit _me_ to be a trifle
+impudent."
+
+"After that gallant speech you made just now, I can hardly believe such
+a thing possible. But let me hear you try, please."
+
+"O it's very possible, I assure you!" said Robert. "See if it is not.
+What I want to ask is, why you Virginians so often use the word 'reckon'
+in the sense of 'think' or 'presume,' as you did a moment since?"
+
+"Because it's right," said Sudie.
+
+"No, cousin, it is not good English," replied Robert.
+
+"Perhaps not, but it's _good Virginian_, and that's better for my
+purposes. Besides, it must be good English. St. Paul used it twice."
+
+"Did he? I was not aware that the Apostle to the Gentiles spoke English
+at all."
+
+"Come, Cousin Robert, I must give out dinner now. Do you want to carry
+my key-basket?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+_Miss Sudie makes an Apt Quotation._
+
+
+My friend who writes novels tells me that there is no other kind of
+exercise which so perfectly rests an over-tasked brain as riding on
+horseback does. His theory is that when the mind is overworked it will
+not quit working at command, but goes on with the labor after the tools
+have been laid aside. If the worker goes to bed, either he finds it
+impossible to go to sleep or sleeping he dreams, his mind thus working
+harder in sleep than if he were awake. Walking, this novelist friend
+says, affords no relief. On the contrary, one thinks better when walking
+than at any other time. But on horseback he finds it impossible to
+confine his thoughts to any subject for two minutes together. He may
+begin as many trains of thought as he chooses, but he never gets past
+their beginning. The motion of the animal jolts it all up into a jumble,
+and rest is the inevitable result. The man's animal spirits rise, in
+sympathy, perhaps, with those of his horse, and as the animal in him
+begins to assert itself his intellect yields to its master and suffers
+itself to become quiescent.
+
+Now it is possible that Mr. Robert Pagebrook had found out this fact
+about horseback exercise, and determined to profit by it to the extent
+of securing all the intellectual rest he could during his stay at
+Shirley. At any rate, his early morning ride with "Cousin Sudie" was
+repeated, not once, but every day when decided rain did not interfere.
+He became greatly interested, too, in the Virginian system of
+housekeeping, and made daily study of it in company with Miss Sudie,
+whose key-basket he carried as she went her rounds from dining-room to
+smoke-house, from smoke-house to store-room, from store-room to garden,
+and from garden to the shady gable of the house, where Miss Sudie "set"
+the churn every morning, a process which consisted of scalding it out,
+putting in the cream, and wrapping wet cloths all over the head of it
+and far up the dasher handle, as a precaution against the possible
+results of carelessness on the part of the half dozen little darkeys
+whose daily duty it was to "chun." Mr. Robert soon became well versed in
+all the mysteries of "giving out" dinner and other things pertaining to
+the office of housekeeper--an office in which every Virginian woman
+takes pride, and one in the duties of which every well-bred Virginian
+girl is thoroughly skilled. (Corollary--good dinners and general
+comfort.)
+
+Old "Aunty" cooks are always extremely slow of motion, and so the young
+ladies who carry the keys have a good deal of necessary leisure during
+their morning rounds. Miss Sudie had a pretty little habit, as a good
+many other young women there have, of carrying a book in her key-basket,
+so that she might read while aunt Kizzey (I really do not know of what
+proper noun this very common one is an abbreviation) made up her tray.
+Picking up a volume he found there one morning, Robert continued a
+desultory conversation by saying:
+
+"You don't read Montaigne, do you, Cousin Sudie?"
+
+"O yes! I read everything--or anything, rather. I never saw a book I
+couldn't get something out of, except Longfellow."
+
+"Except Longfellow!" exclaimed Robert in surprise. "Is it possible you
+don't enjoy Longfellow? Why, that is heresy of the rankest kind!"
+
+"I know it is, but I'm a heretic in a good many things. I hate
+Longfellow's hexameters; I don't like Tennyson; and I can't understand
+Browning any better than he understands himself. I know I ought to like
+them all, as you all up North do, but I don't."
+
+Mr. Robert was shocked. Here was a young girl, fresh and healthy, who
+could read prosy old Montaigne's chatter with interest; who knew Pope by
+heart, and Dryden almost as well; who read the prose and poetry of the
+eighteenth century constantly, as he knew; and who, on a former
+occasion, had pleaded guilty to a liking for sonnets, but who could find
+nothing to like in Tennyson, Longfellow, or Browning. Somehow the
+discovery was not an agreeable one to him though he could hardly say
+why, and so he chose not to pursue the subject further just then. He
+said instead:
+
+"That is the queerest Virginianism I've heard yet--'you all.'"
+
+"It's a very convenient one, you'll admit, and a Virginian don't care
+to go far out of his way in such things."
+
+"You will think me critical this morning, Cousin Sudie, but I often
+wonder at the carelessness, not of Virginians only, but of everybody
+else, in the use of contractions. 'Don't,' for instance, is well enough
+as a contraction for 'do not, but nearly everybody uses it, as you did
+just now, for 'does not.'"
+
+"Do don't lecture me, Cousin Robert. I'm a heretic, I tell you, in
+grammar."
+
+"'Do don't' is the richest provincialism I have heard yet, Cousin Sudie.
+I really must make a note of that."
+
+"Cousin Robert, do you read Montaigne?"
+
+"Sometimes. Why?"
+
+"Do you remember what he says about custom and grammar?"
+
+"No. What is it?"
+
+"He says it, remember, and not I. He says 'they that fight custom with
+grammar are fools.' What a rude old fellow he was, wasn't he?"
+
+Mr. Pagebrook suddenly remembered that he was to dine that day at his
+cousin Edwin's house, and that it was time for him to go, as he intended
+to walk, Graybeard having fallen lame during that morning's gallop with
+Miss Sudie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Meets an Acquaintance._
+
+
+Mr. Robert left the house on his way to The Oaks in an excellent humor
+with himself and with everybody else. His cousin Billy and his uncle
+Col. Barksdale were both absent, in attendance upon a court in another
+county, and so Mr. Robert had recently been left almost alone with Miss
+Sudie, and now that they had become the very best of friends our young
+man enjoyed this state of affairs right heartily. In truth Miss Sudie
+was a young lady very much to Mr. Robert's taste, in saying which I pay
+that young gentleman as handsome a compliment as any well regulated man
+could wish.
+
+Mr. Robert walked briskly out of the front gate and down the road,
+enjoying the bright sun and the rich coloring of the October woodlands,
+and making merry in his heart by running over in his memory the chats he
+had been having of late with the little woman who carried the keys at
+Shirley. If he had been forced to tell precisely what had been said in
+those conversations, it must be confessed that a stranger would have
+found very little of interest in the repetition, but somehow the
+recollection brought a frequent smile to our young friend's face and
+put an additional springiness into his step. His intercourse with this
+cousin by brevet may not have been especially brilliant or of a nature
+calculated to be particularly interesting to other people, but to him it
+had been extremely agreeable, without doubt.
+
+"Mornin' Mas' Robert," said Phil, as Robert passed the place at which
+the old negro was working. "How is ye dis mornin'?"
+
+"Good morning, Phil. I am very well, I thank you. How are you, Phil?"
+
+"Poorly, thank God. Ha! ha! ha! Dat's de way Bro' Joe and all de folks
+always says it. Dey never will own up to bein' rale well. But I tell ye
+now Mas' Robert, Phil's a well nigger _always_. I keeps up my eend de
+row all de time. I kin knock de spots out de work all day, daunce jigs
+till two o'clock, an' go 'possum huntin' till mornin' comes. Is ye ever
+been 'possum huntin', Mas' Robert?"
+
+"No; I believe I never hunted opossums, but I should greatly like to try
+it, Phil."
+
+"Would ye? Gim me yer han' Mas' Robert. You jes set de time now, and if
+Phil don't show you de sights o' 'possum huntin' you ken call me a po'
+white folkses nigger. Dat's a fac'."
+
+Robert promised to make the necessary appointment in due time, and was
+just starting off again on his tramp, when Phil asked:
+
+"Whare ye boun' dis mornin', Mas' Robert?"
+
+"I'm going over to dine at The Oaks, Phil."
+
+"Yer jest out de house in time. Dar comes Mas' Charles Harrison."
+
+"I do not understand you, Phil. Why do you say I am out of the house
+just in time?"
+
+"Mas' Robert, is you got two good eyes? Mas' Charles is a doctor you
+know, but dey a'n't nobody sick at Shirley. May be he's afraid Miss
+Sudie's gwine to get sick. Hi! git up Roley! dis a'n't plowin' mauster's
+field: g'long I tell ye!"
+
+As Phil turned away Dr. Harrison rode up.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Pagebrook. On your way to The Oaks?"
+
+"I was, but if you are going to Shirley I will walk back with you!"
+
+"O no! no! I am only going to stop there a moment. I am on my way to see
+some patients at Exenholm, and as I had to go past Shirley I brought the
+mail, that's all. I'll not be there ten minutes, and I know they're
+expecting you at The Oaks. I brought Ewing along with me from the Court
+House. Foggy had been too much for him again."
+
+"Why the boy promised me he would not gamble again."
+
+"Oh! it's hardly gambling. Only a little game of loo. Every gentleman
+plays a little. I take a hand myself, now and then; but Foggy is a
+pretty old bird, you know, and he's too much for your cousin. Ewing
+oughtn't to play with _him_, of course, and that's why I brought him
+away with me. By the way, we're going to get a fox up in a day or two
+and show you some sport. The tobacco's all cut now, and the dogs are in
+capital order--as thin as a lath. You must be with us, of course. We'll
+get up one in pine quarter, and he's sure to run towards the river; so
+you can come in as the hounds pass Shirley."
+
+"I should like to see a fox hunt, certainly, but I have no proper
+horse," said Robert.
+
+"Why, where's Graybeard? Billy told me he had turned him over to you to
+use and abuse."
+
+"So he did, and he is riding his bay at present. But Graybeard is quite
+lame just now."
+
+"Ride the bay then. Billy will be back from court to-night, won't he?"
+
+"Yes; but he will want to join in the chase, I suppose."
+
+"I reckon he will, but he can ride something else. He don't often care
+to take the tail, and he can see as much as he likes on one of his
+'conestogas.' I'll tell you what you can do. Winger's got a splendid
+colt, pretty well broken, and you can get him for a dollar or two if you
+a'n't afraid to ride him. You must manage it somehow, so as to be 'in at
+the death!' I want you to see some riding."
+
+Mr. Robert promised to see what he could do. He greatly wanted to ride
+after the hounds for once at least, though it must be confessed he would
+have been better pleased had the hounds to be ridden after belonged to
+somebody else besides the gentleman familiarly known as "Foggy," a
+personage for whom Mr. Robert had certainly not conceived a very great
+liking. That the reader may know whether his prejudice was a
+well-founded one or not it will be necessary for me to go back a little
+and gather up some of the loose threads of my story, while our young man
+is on his way to The Oaks. I have been so deeply interested in the
+ripening acquaintanceship between Mr. Rob and Miss Sudie that I have
+neglected to introduce some other personages, less agreeable perhaps,
+but not less important to the proper understanding of this history.
+Leaving young Pagebrook on the road, therefore, let me tell the reader,
+in a new chapter, something about the people he had met outside the
+hospitable Shirley mansion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+_Chiefly Concerning "Foggy."_
+
+
+Dr. Charles Harrison was a young man of twenty-five or six, a distant
+relative of the Barksdales--so distant indeed that he would never have
+known himself as a relative at all, if he and they had not been
+Virginians. He was a young man of good parts, fond of field sports,
+reasonably well behaved in all external matters, but without any very
+fixed moral principles. He was a gentleman, in the strict Virginian
+sense of the term. That is to say he was of a good family, was well
+educated, and had never done anything to disgrace himself; wherefore he
+was received in all gentlemen's houses as an equal. He drank a little
+too freely on occasion, and played bluff and loo a trifle too often, the
+elderly people thought; but these things, it was commonly supposed, were
+only youthful follies. He would grow out of them--marry and settle down
+after awhile. He was on the whole a very agreeable person to be with,
+and very much of a gentleman in his manner.
+
+"Foggy" Raves was an anomaly. His precise position in the social scale
+was a very difficult thing to discover, and is still more difficult to
+define. His father had been an overseer, and so "Foggy" was certainly
+not a "gentleman." Other men of parentage similar to his knew their
+places, and when business made it necessary for them to visit the house
+of a gentleman they expected to be received in the porch if the weather
+were tolerable, and in the dining-room if it were not. They never
+dreamed of being taken into the parlor, introduced to the family, or
+invited to dinner. All these things were well recognized customs; the
+line of demarkation between "gentlemen" and "common people" was very
+sharply drawn indeed. The two classes lived on excellent terms with each
+other, but they never mixed. The gentleman was always courteous to the
+common people out of respect for himself; while the common people were
+very deferential to every gentleman as a matter of duty. Now this man
+Raves was not a "gentleman." That much was clear. And yet, for some
+inscrutable reason, his position among the people who knew him was not
+exactly that of a common man. He was never invited into gentlemen's
+houses precisely as a gentleman would have been, it is true; and yet
+into gentlemen's houses he very often went, and that upon invitation
+too. When young men happened to be keeping bachelors' establishments,
+either temporarily or permanently, "Foggy" was sure to be invited pretty
+frequently to see them. As long as there were no ladies at home "Foggy"
+knew himself welcome, and he had played whist and loo and bluff in many
+genteel parlors, into which he never thought of going when there were
+ladies on the plantation. He kept a fine pack of hounds too, and was
+clearly at the head of the "fox-hunting interest" of the county; and
+this was an anomaly also, as fox-hunting is an eminently aristocratic
+sport, in which gentlemen engage only in company with gentlemen--except
+in "Foggy's" case.
+
+[Illustration: "FOGGY."]
+
+Precisely what "Foggy's" business was it is difficult to say. He was
+constable, for one thing, and _ex-officio_ county jailor. One half the
+jail building was fitted up as his residence, and there he lived, a
+bachelor some fifty years old. He hired out horses and buggies in a
+small way now and then, but his earnings were principally made at
+"bluff" and "loo." Once or twice Colonel Barksdale and some other
+gentlemen had tried to oust "Foggy" from the jail, believing that his
+establishment there was ruining a good many of the young men, as it
+certainly was. Failing in this they had him indicted for gambling in a
+public place, but the prosecution failed, the court holding that the
+jailor's private rooms in the jail could not be called a public place,
+though all rooms in a hotel had been held public within the meaning of
+the statute.
+
+This man's Christian name was not "Foggy," of course, though hardly
+anybody knew what it really was. He had won his sobriquet in early life
+by paying the professional gambler, Daniel K. Foggy, to teach him "how
+to beat roulette," and then winning his money back by putting his
+purchased knowledge to the proof at Daniel's own roulette table.
+Everybody agreed that "Foggy" was a good fellow. He would go far out of
+his way to oblige anybody, and, as was pretty generally agreed, had a
+good many of the instincts of a gentleman. He was not a professional
+gambler at all. He never kept a faro bank. He played cards merely for
+amusement, he said, and there was a popular tendency to believe his
+statement. The betting was simply to "make it interesting," and
+sometimes the play did grow very "interesting" indeed--interesting to
+the extent of several hundred dollars frequently.
+
+Now only about a week before the morning on which Mr. Robert met Dr.
+Harrison, he had gone to the Court House for the purpose of calling upon
+the doctor. While there young Harrison had proposed that they go up to
+Foggy's, explaining that Foggy was "quite a character, whom you ought to
+know; not a gentleman, of course, but a good fellow as ever lived."
+
+Upon going to Foggy's, Robert had found his cousin Ewing Pagebrook there
+playing cards. The boy--for he was not yet of age--was flushed and
+excited, and Robert saw at a glance that he had been losing heavily. On
+Robert's entrance he threw down his cards and declared himself tired of
+play.
+
+"I'll arrange that, Foggy," said the boy, with a nod.
+
+"O any time will do!" replied the other. "How d'ye do, Charley? Come
+in."
+
+Dr. Charley introduced Robert, and the latter, barely recognizing
+Foggy's greeting, turned to Ewing and asked:
+
+"What have you been doing, Ewing? Not gambling, I hope."
+
+"O no! certainly not," said Foggy; "only a little game of draw-poker,
+ten cents ante."
+
+"Well, but how much have you lost, Ewing?" asked Robert. "How much more
+than you can pay in cash, I mean? I see you haven't settled the score."
+
+Ewing was inclined to resent his cousin's questioning, but his rather
+weak head was by no means a match for his cousin's strong one. This
+great hulking Robert Pagebrook was "big all over," Billy Barksdale had
+said. His will was law to most men when he chose to assert it strongly.
+He now took his cousin in hand, and made him confess to a debt of fifty
+dollars to the gambler. Then turning to Foggy he said:
+
+"Mr. Raves, you have won all of this young man's money and fifty dollars
+more, it appears. Now, as I understand the matter, this fifty dollars is
+'a debt of honor,' in gambling parlance, and so it must be paid. But you
+must acknowledge that you are more than a match for a mere boy, and you
+ought to 'give him odds.' I believe that is the correct phrase, is it
+not?"
+
+"Yes, that's right; but how can you give odds in draw-poker?"
+
+"I am going to show you, though I am certainly not acquainted with the
+mysteries of that game. You and he think he owes you fifty dollars. Now
+my opinion is that he owes you nothing, while you owe him the precise
+amount of cash you have won from him; and I propose to effect a
+compromise. The law of Virginia is pretty stringent, I believe, on the
+subject of gambling with people under age, and if I were disposed I
+could give you some trouble on that score. But I propose instead to pay
+you ten dollars--just enough to make a receipt worth while--and to take
+your receipt in full for the amount due. I shall then take my cousin
+home, and he can pay me at his leisure. Is that satisfactory, sir?"
+
+Mr. Robert was in a towering rage, though his manner was as quiet as it
+is possible to conceive, and his voice was as soft and smooth as a
+woman's. Had Foggy been disposed to presume upon his antagonist's
+apparent calmness and to play the bully, he would unquestionably have
+got himself into trouble of a physical sort there and then. To speak
+plainly, Robert Pagebrook was quite prepared to punish the gambler with
+his fists, and would undoubtedly have made short work of it had Foggy
+provoked him with a word. But Foggy never quarreled. He knew his
+business too well for that. He never gave himself airs with gentlemen.
+He knew his place too well. He never got himself involved in any kind of
+disturbance which would attract attention to himself. He knew the
+consequences too well. He was always quiet, always deferential, always
+satisfied; and so, while he had no reason to anticipate the thrashing
+which Robert Pagebrook was aching to give him, he nevertheless was as
+complacent as possible in his reply to that gentleman.
+
+"Why certainly, Mr. Pagebrook. I never meant to take the money at all. I
+only wanted to frighten our young friend here, and teach him a lesson.
+He thinks he can play cards when he can't, and I wanted to 'break him of
+sucking eggs,' that's all. I meant to let him think he had to pay me so
+as to scare him, for I feel an interest in Ewing. 'Pon my word I do. Now
+let me tell you, Ewing, we'll call this square, and you mustn't play no
+more. You play honest now, but if you keep on you'll cheat a little
+after awhile, and when a man cheats at cards, Ewing, he'll steal. Mind,
+I speak from experience, for I've seen a good deal of this thing. Come,
+Charley, you and Mr. Pagebrook, let's take something. I've got some
+splendid Shield's whisky."
+
+Mr. Pagebrook summoned sufficient courtesy to decline the alcoholic
+hospitality without rudeness, and, with his cousin, took his leave.
+
+Ewing entreated Robert to keep the secret he had thus stumbled upon, and
+Robert promised to do so upon the express condition that Ewing would
+wholly refrain from playing cards for money in future. This the youth
+promised to do, and our friend Robert congratulated himself upon his
+success in saving his well-meaning but rather weak-headed cousin from
+certain ruin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Rides._
+
+
+In view of the circumstances detailed in the preceding chapter, it was
+quite natural that Robert Pagebrook should feel some annoyance when he
+learned from young Harrison that his cousin had again fallen into the
+hands of Foggy Raves. And he did feel annoyance, and a good deal of it,
+as he resumed his walk toward The Oaks. Aside from his interest in his
+cousin, Robert disliked to be beaten at anything, and to find that the
+gambler had fairly beaten him in his fight for the salvation of Ewing
+was anything but agreeable to him. Then again his cousin had shown
+himself miserably weak of moral purpose, and weaknesses were always
+unpleasant things for Robert Pagebrook to contemplate. He had no
+sympathy with irresolution of any sort, and no patience with unstable
+moral knees. He was half angry and wholly grieved, therefore, when he
+heard of Ewing's violation of his promise. His first impulse was to go
+before the next grand jury and secure Foggy's indictment for gambling
+with a minor, but a maturer reflection convinced him that while this
+would be an agreeable thing to do under the circumstances, it would be
+an unwise one as well. To expose Ewing was to ruin him hopelessly,
+Robert felt, knowing as he did that reformation in the face of public
+disgrace requires a good deal more of moral stamina than Ewing Pagebrook
+ever had. Precisely what to do Robert did not know. He would talk with
+Cousin Sudie about the matter, and see what she thought was best. Her
+judgment, he had discovered, was particularly good, and it might help
+him to a determination.
+
+This thinking of Cousin Sudie brought back to his mind Phil's hint as to
+the purpose of Dr. Harrison's visit, and his face burned as the
+conviction came to him that this man might be Cousin Sudie's accepted or
+acceptable lover. He knew well enough that Harrison called frequently at
+Shirley; but surely Cousin Sudie would have mentioned the man often in
+conversation if he had been largely in her mind. Would she though? This
+was a second thought. Was not her silence, on the contrary, rather an
+indication that she did think of the man? If she recognized him as a
+lover, would she not certainly avoid all unnecessary mention of his
+name? Was not Phil likely to be pretty well informed in the case? All
+these things ran rapidly through his perturbed mind. But why should he
+worry himself over a matter that in no way concerned him? _He_ was not
+interested in Cousin Sudie except as a friend. Of course not. Was not
+his heart still sore from its suffering at the hands of Miss Nellie
+Currier? No; upon the whole he was forced to confess that it was not. In
+truth he had not thought of that young lady for at least a fortnight;
+and now that he did think of her he could not possibly understand how
+or why he had ever cared for her at all. But he was not in love with
+Cousin Sudie. Of that he was certain. And yet he could not avoid a
+feeling of very decided annoyance at the thought suggested by Phil's
+remark. He knew young Harrison very slightly, but he was accustomed to
+take men's measures pretty promptly, and he was not at all satisfied
+with this one as a suitor for Cousin Sudie. He knew that Foggy was the
+young physician's pretty constant associate. He knew that Harrison drank
+at times to excess, and he felt that he was not over scrupulous upon
+nice points of morality. In short, our young man was in a fair way to
+work himself into a very pretty indignation when he met Maj. Pagebrook's
+overseer, Winger. A negotiation immediately ensued, ending in an
+agreement that Robert should ride the black colt so long as Graybeard's
+lameness should continue, paying Winger a moderate hire for the animal.
+
+The bargain concluded, Winger dismounted and Robert took his place on
+the colt's back, borrowing Winger's saddle until his return to Shirley
+in the evening.
+
+Horseback exercise is a curious thing, certainly, in some of its
+effects. When Robert was afoot that morning several things had combined,
+as we have seen, to make him gloomy, despondent, and generally out of
+sorts. Ewing's backsliding had annoyed him, and the possibility or
+probability of Phil's accuracy of information and judgment in the matter
+of Cousin Sudie and Dr. Harrison had depressed him sorely. When he found
+himself on the back of this magnificent colt, whose delight it was to
+carry a strong, fearless rider, he fell immediately into hearty sympathy
+with the high spirits and bounding pulses of the animal. He struck out
+into a gallop, and in an instant felt himself in a far brighter world
+than that which he had been traversing ten minutes since. His spirits
+rose. His hopefulness returned. The world became better and the future
+more promising. Mr. Robert Pagebrook felt the unreasonable but
+thoroughly delightful exhilaration to which Billy Barksdale referred
+when he said, "Bob is the happiest fellow in the world; he gets glad
+sometimes just because he is alive." That was precisely the state of
+affairs. Mr. Robert on this high-mettled horse was superlatively alive,
+and was glad because of it. There is more of joy than many people know
+in the mere act of living; but it is only they who have clear
+consciences, springy muscles, and perfect health of both mind and body
+who fully share this joy. Robert Pagebrook had all of these, and was
+astride a perfect horse to boot; and that, as all horsemen know, is an
+important element in the matter.
+
+He galloped on toward The Oaks, leaving his troubles just where he
+mounted his horse. He forgot Ewing's apostasy; he forgot Dr. Harrison,
+but he remembered Cousin Sudie, and that right pleasantly too. Naturally
+enough, being on horseback, he projected himself into the future, which
+is always a bright world when one is galloping toward it. He would
+heartily enjoy the coming fox-chase--particularly on such an animal as
+that now under him. Then his thoughts pushed themselves still further
+forward, and he dreamed dreams. His full professorship would pay him a
+salary sufficient to justify him in setting up a little establishment of
+his own, and he should then know what it was to have a home in which
+there should be love and purity and peace and domestic comfort. The
+woman who was to form the center of all this bliss was vaguely undefined
+as to identity and other details. She existed only in outline, in the
+picture, but that outline strikingly resembled the young woman who
+carried the key-basket at Shirley--an accidental resemblance, of course,
+for Mr. Robert Pagebrook was positive that he was not in love with
+Cousin Sudie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Dines with his Cousin Sarah Ann._
+
+
+How largely Mr. Robert's high spirits were the result of rapid riding on
+a good horse, and how far other causes aided in producing them, I am
+wholly unprepared to say. Whatever their cause was they were not
+destined to last long after he dismounted at The Oaks. Indeed his day at
+that country seat was not at all an agreeable one. His cousin Sarah Ann
+was a rather depressing person to be with at any time, and there were
+circumstances which made her especially so on this particular occasion.
+Cousin Sarah Ann had a chronic habit of being ostentatiously sorry for
+herself, which was very disagreeable to a healthy young man like Robert.
+She nursed and cherished her griefs as if they had been her children,
+and like children they grew under the process. She had several times
+told Robert how lonely she was since the death of her mother, three
+years before, and with tears in her eyes she had complained that there
+was nobody to love her now that poor mother was gone--a statement which
+right-thinking and logical Robert felt himself almost guilty in hearing
+from a woman with a husband and a house full of children. She
+complained a good deal of her poverty, too, a complaining which shocked
+this truthful young man, knowing, as he did, that his cousin Edwin was
+one of the wealthiest men in the country round about, with a good
+plantation at home, a very large and profitable one in Mississippi,
+twenty or thirty business buildings, well leased, in Richmond, a surplus
+of money in bank, and no debts whatever, which last circumstance served
+to make him almost a curiosity in a state in which it was hardly
+respectable to owe no money. She complained, too, that her boys were
+dull and her girls not pretty, both of which complaints were very well
+founded indeed. When Robert on his first visit said something in praise
+of her comfortable and really pretty house, she replied:
+
+"Oh! I can't pretend to live in an aristocratic house like your Aunt
+Mary's. I didn't inherit a 'family mansion' you know, and so we had to
+build this house. It hasn't a bit of wainscoting, you see, and no old
+pictures. I reckon I a'n't as good as you Pagebrooks, and somehow my
+husband a'n't as aristocratic as the rest of you. I reckon he's only a
+half-blood Pagebrook, and that's why he condescended to marry poor me."
+
+This was Cousin Sarah Ann's favorite way of speaking of herself, and she
+said "poor me" with a degree of pathos in her tone which always brought
+tears to her eyes.
+
+On the present occasion, as I have said, there were circumstances which
+enabled this estimable lady to make herself unusually disagreeable. She
+had a fresh affliction, and so she reveled in an ecstasy of woe. It was
+her ambition in life to be exceptionally miserable, and accordingly she
+welcomed sorrow with a keenness of relish which few people can possibly
+know. She wouldn't be happy in heaven, Billy Barksdale said, unless she
+could convince people there that she was snubbed by the saints and put
+upon by the angels.
+
+When Robert arrived at The Oaks that morning Major Pagebrook met him at
+the gate, according to custom, but without his customary cheerfulness of
+countenance. He offered no explanation, however, and Robert asked no
+questions. The two went into the parlor, Robert catching sight of Ewing
+in the orchard back of the house, but having no opportunity to speak to
+the young man.
+
+Robert had not been in the parlor many minutes before Major Pagebrook
+went out and Cousin Sarah Ann entered and greeted him with her
+handkerchief to her eyes. She made one or two ostentatious efforts to
+control herself, and then ostentatiously burst into tears.
+
+[Illustration: COUSIN SARAH ANN.]
+
+"Oh! Cousin Robert, I didn't mean to betray myself this way. But I'm so
+miserable. Ewing has been led away again by that man, Foggy Raves."
+
+"I am heartily sorry to know it, Cousin Sarah Ann," replied Robert. "Did
+he lose much?"
+
+"O Ewing never gambles! I don't mean that. Thank heaven my boy never
+plays cards, except with small stakes for amusement. But he went over to
+the Court House last night to stay with Charley Harrison, and they went
+up to Foggy's and they drank a little too much. And now Cousin Edwin
+(Mrs. Pagebrook always called her husband Cousin Edwin) is terribly
+angry about it and has scolded the poor boy cruelly, cruelly. He even
+threatened to cut him off with nothing at all in his will, and leave the
+poor boy to starve. Men are so hard-hearted! The idea that I should live
+to hear my boy talked to in that way, and by his own father too, almost
+kills me. Poor me! there's nobody to love me now."
+
+"Tell me, Cousin Sarah Ann," said Robert, "for I am deeply concerned in
+Ewing's behalf, and I mean to reform him if I can--does he often get
+drunk?"
+
+"Get drunk! My boy never gets drunk! You talk just like Cousin Edwin. He
+only drinks a little, as all young gentlemen do, and if he drinks too
+much now and then I'm sure it isn't so very dreadful as you all make it
+out. I don't see why the poor boy must be kept down all the time and
+scolded and scolded and talked about, just because he does like other
+people; and that's what distresses me. Cousin Edwin scolds Ewing, and
+then scolds me for taking the poor boy's part, and it's more than I can
+bear. And now you talk about 'reforming' him!"
+
+Robert explained that he had misunderstood the cause of Cousin Sarah
+Ann's grief, but he thought it would be something worse than useless to
+tell her that she was ruining the boy, as he saw clearly enough that she
+was. He turned the conversation, therefore, and Cousin Sarah Ann
+speedily dried her eyes.
+
+"You're riding Mr. Winger's horse, I see. What's become of Graybeard?"
+she asked, after a little time.
+
+"He is a little lame just now. Nothing serious, but I thought I would
+hire Winger's colt until he gets well."
+
+"Ah! I understand. The rides soon in the morning must not be given up
+on any terms. But you'd better look out, Cousin Robert. I'm sorry for
+you if you lose your heart there."
+
+"Why, Cousin Sarah Ann, what do you mean? I really am not sure that I
+understand you."
+
+"Oh! I say nothing; but those rides every morning and all that
+housekeeping that I've heard about, are dangerous things, cousin. I was
+a belle once myself."
+
+It was one of Cousin Sarah Ann's favorite theories that she knew all
+about bellehood, having been a belle herself--though nobody else ever
+knew anything about that particular part of her career.
+
+"Well, Cousin Sarah Ann, I do not think I have lost my heart, as you
+phrase it; but pray tell me why you should be sorry for me if I had?"
+
+Mr. Robert was at first about to declare positively that he had not
+fallen in love with Cousin Sudie, but just at that moment it occurred to
+him that he might possibly be mistaken about the matter, and being
+thoroughly truthful he chose the less positive form of denial,
+supplementing it, as we have seen, with a question.
+
+"Well, for several reasons," replied Cousin Sarah Ann: "they do say that
+Charley Harrison is before you there, and anyhow, it would never do.
+Sudie hasn't got much, you know. Her father didn't leave her anything
+but a few hundred dollars, and that's all spent long ago, on her clothes
+and schooling."
+
+Mr. Robert Pagebrook certainly did not wish ill to Cousin Sudie, and yet
+he was heartily though illogically glad when he learned that that young
+lady was poor. The feeling surprised him, but he had no time in which
+to analyze it just then.
+
+"Why, Cousin Sarah Ann, you certainly do not think me so mercenary as
+your remark would seem to indicate?"
+
+"Oh! it's well enough to talk about not being mercenary, but I can tell
+you that some money on one side or the other is very convenient. I know
+by experience what it is to be poor. I might have married rich if I'd
+wanted to, but I had lofty notions like you."
+
+The reader will please remember that I am no more responsible for Mrs.
+Pagebrook's syntax than for her sins.
+
+"But, Cousin Sarah Ann," said Robert, "you would not wish one to marry a
+young woman's money or lands, would you?"
+
+"That's only your romantic way of putting it. I don't see why you can't
+love a rich girl as well as a poor one, for my part. If you had plenty
+of money yourself it wouldn't matter; but as it is you ought to marry so
+as to hang up your hat."
+
+"I confess I do not exactly understand your figure of speech, Cousin
+Sarah Ann! What do you mean by hanging up my hat?"
+
+"Didn't you ever hear that before? It's a common saying here, when a man
+marries a girl with a good plantation and a 'dead daddy,' so there can't
+be any doubt about the land being her's--they say he's got nothing to do
+but walk in and hang up his hat."
+
+This explanation was lucid enough without doubt, but it, and indeed the
+entire conversation, was extremely disagreeable to Robert, who was
+sufficiently old-fashioned to think that marriage was a holy thing, and
+he, being a man of good taste, disliked to hear holy things lightly
+spoken of. He was relieved, therefore, by Maj. Pagebrook's entrance, and
+not long afterwards he was invited to go up to the blue-room, the way to
+which he knew perfectly well, to rest awhile before dinner.
+
+In the blue-room he found Ewing, with a headache, lying on a lounge. The
+youth had purposely gone thither, probably, in order that his meeting
+with Robert might be a private one, for meet him he must, as he very
+well knew, at dinner if not before.
+
+Robert sat down by him and held his head as tenderly as a woman could
+have done, and speaking gently said:
+
+"I am very sorry to find you suffering, Ewing. You must ride with me
+after dinner, and the air will relieve your head, I hope."
+
+The boy actually burst into tears, and presently, recovering from the
+paroxysm, said:
+
+"I didn't expect that, Cousin Robert. Those are the first kind words
+I've heard to-day. Mother has called me hard names all the morning."
+
+"Your _mother_!" exclaimed Robert, thrown off his guard by surprise, for
+he would never have thought of questioning the boy on such a subject.
+
+"O yes! she always does. If she'd ever give me any credit when I do try
+to do right, I reckon I would try harder. But she calls me a drunkard
+and gambler whenever there is the least excuse for it; and if I don't do
+anything wrong she says I am pokey and a'n't got any spirit. She told me
+this morning she didn't mean to leave me anything in her will, because
+I'd squander it. You know all pa's property is in her name now. I got
+mad at last and told her I knew she couldn't keep me from getting my
+share, because nearly half of everything here belonged to Grandfather
+Taylor and is willed to us children when we come of age. She didn't know
+I knew that, and when I told her----"
+
+"Come, Ewing, don't talk about that. You have no right to tell me such
+things. Bathe your head now, and hold it up as a man should. You are
+responsible to yourself for yourself, and it is your duty to make a man
+of yourself--such a man as you need not be ashamed of. If you think you
+do not receive the recognition you ought for your efforts to do well,
+you should remember that things are not perfectly adjusted in this
+world, so far at least as we can understand them. The reward of
+manliness is the manliness itself; and it is well worth living for too,
+even though nobody recognizes its existence but yourself. Of that,
+however, there need be no fear. People will know you, sooner or later,
+precisely as you are."
+
+Robert had other encouraging things to say to the youth, and finally
+said:
+
+"Now, Ewing, I shall ask you to make no promises which you may not be
+strong enough to keep; but if you will promise me to make an earnest
+effort to let whisky and cards alone, and to make a man of yourself,
+refusing to be led by other people, I will talk with your father and get
+him to agree never to mention the past again, but to aid you with every
+encouragement in his power for the future."
+
+"Why, Cousin Robert, pa never says anything to me. When ma scolds he
+just goes out of the house, and he don't come in again till he's obliged
+to. It a'n't pa at all, it's ma, and it a'n't any use to talk to her.
+I'll be of age pretty soon, and then I mean to take my share of
+grandpa's estate, and put it into money and go clear away from here."
+
+Robert saw that it would be idle to remonstrate with the young man at
+present, and equally idle to interfere with the domestic governmental
+system practiced by Cousin Sarah Ann. He devoted himself, therefore, to
+the task of getting Ewing to bathe his head; and after a little time the
+two went down to dinner, Ewing thinking Robert the only real friend he
+could claim.
+
+His head aching worse after dinner than before, he declined Robert's
+invitation to go to Shirley, and our friend rode back alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+_Concerning the Rivulets of Blue Blood._
+
+
+Mr. Robert was heartily glad to get away from the uncomfortable presence
+of Cousin Sarah Ann, and yet it can not be said that our young gentleman
+was buoyant of spirit as he rode from The Oaks to Shirley. Ewing's case
+had depressed him, and Cousin Sarah Ann had depressed him still further.
+His confidence in woman nature was shaken. His ideas on the subject of
+women had been for the most part evolved--wrought out, _a priori_, from
+his mother as a premise. He had known all the time that not every woman
+was his mother's equal, if indeed any woman was; he had observed that
+sometimes vanity and weakness and in one case, as we know, faithlessness
+entered into the composition of women, but he had never conceived of
+such a compound of "envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness"
+as his cousin Sarah Ann certainly was; and as he applied the quotation
+mentally he was constrained also to utter the petition which accompanies
+it in the litany--"Good Lord deliver us!" This woman was a mystery to
+him. She not only shocked but she puzzled him. How anybody could
+consent to be just such a person as she was was wholly incomprehensible.
+Her departures from the right line of true womanhood were so entirely
+purposeless that he could trace them to no logical starting-point. He
+could conceive of no possible training or experience which ought to
+result in such a character as hers.
+
+[Illustration: THE RIVULETS OF BLUE BLOOD.]
+
+After puzzling himself over this human problem for half an hour he gave
+it up, and straightway began to work at another. He asked himself how it
+could be possible that Cousin Sudie should be attracted by Dr. Charley
+Harrison. Possibly the reader has had occasion to work at a similar
+problem in his time, and if so I need not tell him how incapable it
+proved of solution. Of the fact Robert was now convinced, and the fact
+annoyed him. It annoyed him too that he could not account for the fact;
+and then it annoyed him still more to know that he could be annoyed at
+all in the case, for he was perfectly sure--or nearly so--that he was
+not himself in love with his little friend at Shirley. And yet he felt a
+strange yearning to battle in some way with young Harrison, and to
+conquer him. He wanted to beat the man at something, it mattered little
+what, and to triumph over him. But he did not allow himself even
+mentally to formulate this feeling. If he had he would have discovered
+its injustice, and cast it from him as unworthy. His instinct warned him
+of this, and so he refused to put his wish into form lest he should
+thereby lose the opportunity of entertaining it.
+
+With thoughts like these the young man rode homewards, and naturally
+enough he was not in the best of humors when he sat down in the parlor
+at Shirley.
+
+The conversation, in some inscrutable way, turned upon Cousin Sarah Ann,
+and Robert so far forgot himself as to express pleasure in the thought
+that that lady was in no way akin to himself.
+
+"But she is kin to you, Robert," said Aunt Catherine.
+
+"How can that be, Aunt Catherine?" asked the young gentleman.
+
+"Show him with the keys, Aunt Catherine, show him with the keys," said
+Billy, who had returned from court that day. "Come, Sudie, where's your
+basket? I want to see if Aunt Catherine can't muddle Bob's head as badly
+as she does mine sometimes. Here are the keys. Explain it to him, Aunt
+Catherine, and if he knows when you get through whether he is his great
+grandfather's nephew or his uncle's son once removed, I'll buy his skull
+for tissue paper at once. A skull that can let key-basket genealogy
+through it a'n't thick enough to grow hair on."
+
+The task was one that the old lady loved, and so without paying the
+slightest attention to Billy's bantering she began at once to arrange
+the keys from Sudie's basket upon the floor in the shape of a
+complicated genealogical table. "Now my child," said she, pointing to
+the great key at top, "the smoke-house key is your great great
+grandmother, who was a Pembroke. The Pembrokes were always
+considered----"
+
+"Always considered smoke-house keys--remember, Bob."
+
+"Will you keep still, William? The Pembrokes were always considered an
+excellent family. Now your great great grandmother, Matilda Pembroke,
+married John Pemberton, and had two sons and one daughter, as you see.
+The oldest son, Charles, had six daughters, and his third daughter
+married your grandfather Pagebrook, so she was your grandmother--the
+store-room key, you see----"
+
+"See, Bob, what it is to be well connected," said Billy; "your own dear
+grandmother was a store-room key."
+
+"Hush, Billy, you confuse Robert."
+
+"Ah! do I? I only wanted him to remember who his grandmother was."
+
+"Well," said the old lady, "Matilda Pemberton's daughter, your great
+grand aunt, married a man of no family--a carpenter or something--the
+corn-house key there."
+
+"There it is, Bob. A'n't you glad you descended from a respectable
+smoke-house key, through an aristocratic store-room key, instead of
+having a plebeian corn-house key in the way? There's nothing like blue
+blood, I tell you, and ours is as blue as an indigo bag; a'n't it, Aunt
+Catherine?"
+
+"Will you never learn, Billy, not to make fun of your ancestors? I have
+explained to you a hundred times how much there is in family. Now don't
+interrupt me again. Let me see, where was I? O yes! Your great grand
+aunt married a carpenter, and his daughter Sarah was your second cousin
+if you count removes, fourth cousin if you don't. Now Sarah was your
+Cousin Sarah Ann's grandmother, as you see; so Sarah Ann is your third
+cousin if you count removes, and your sixth cousin if you don't. Do you
+understand it now?"
+
+"Of course he does," said Billy; "but I must break up the family now, as
+I see Polidore's waiting for the madam's great grandfather, to wit, the
+corn-house key. Come Bob, let's go up to the stable and see the horses
+fed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Manages to be in at the Death._
+
+
+Not many days after Robert's uncomfortable dinner at The Oaks, a servant
+came over with a message from Major Pagebrook, to the effect that a
+grand fox-chase was arranged for the next morning. Foggy and Dr.
+Harrison had originated it, but Major Pagebrook's and several other
+gentlemen's hounds would run, and Ewing invited his cousins, Robert and
+Billy, to take part in the sport. Accordingly our two young gentlemen
+ate an early breakfast and rode over to that part of The Oaks plantation
+known as "Pine quarter," where the first fox-hunt of the season was
+always begun. They arrived not a moment too soon, and found the hounds
+just breaking away and the riders galloping after them. The first five
+miles of country was comparatively open, a fact which gave the fox a
+good start and promised to make the chase a long and a rapid one.
+
+Robert Pagebrook had never seen a fox-chase, and his only knowledge of
+the sport was that which he had gleaned from descriptions, but he was on
+a perfect horse as inexperienced as himself; he was naturally very
+fearless; he was intensely excited, and it was his habit to do whatever
+he believed to be the proper thing on any occasion. From books he had
+got the impression that the proper thing to do in fox-hunting was to
+ride as hard as he could straight after the hounds, and this he did with
+very little regard for consequences. He galloped straight through clumps
+of pine, "as thick," Billy said, "as the hair on Absalom's head," while
+others rode around them. He plunged through creek "low grounds" without
+a thought of possible mires or quicksands. He knew that fox-hunters made
+their horses jump fences, but he knew nothing of their practice in the
+matter of knocking off top rails first, and accordingly he rode straight
+at every fence which happened to stand in his way, and forced his horse
+to take them all at a flying leap.
+
+On and on he went, straight after the hounds, his pulse beating high and
+his brain whirling with excitement. The more judicious hunters of the
+party would have been left far behind but for the advantage they
+possessed in their knowledge of the country and their consequent ability
+to anticipate the fox's turnings, and to save distance and avoid
+difficulties by following short cuts. Robert rode right after the hounds
+always.
+
+"That cousin of yours is crazy," said one gentleman to Billy; "but what
+a magnificent rider he is."
+
+"Why don't you stop your cousin?" asked another, "he'll kill himself, to
+a certainty, if you don't."
+
+"O I will!" replied Billy, "and I'll remonstrate with all the streaks of
+lightning I happen to overtake, too. I'm sure to catch a good many of
+them before I come up with him."
+
+The fox "doubled" very little now, and it became evident that he was
+making for the Appomattox River, but whether he would cross it or double
+and run back was uncertain. Billy earnestly hoped he would double, as
+that might enable him to see Robert and check his mad riding, if indeed
+that gentleman should manage to reach the river with an unbroken neck.
+
+On and on they went, fox running for dear life, hounds in perfect trim
+and full cry, and riders each bent upon "taking the tail" if possible.
+Robert remained in advance of all the rest, jumping every fence over
+which he could force his horse, and making the animal knock down those
+which he could not leap. His horse blundered at a ditch once and fell,
+but recovered himself with his rider still erect in the saddle, before
+anybody had time to wonder whether his neck was broken or not. Billy now
+saw a new danger ahead of his cousin. They were nearing the river, and
+the fox, an old red one, who knew his business, was evidently running
+for a crossing place where mire and quicksands abounded. Of this Robert
+knew nothing, and after his performances thus far there was no reason to
+hope that any late-coming caution would save him now. A thicket of young
+oaks lay just ahead, and the hounds going through it Robert followed
+quite as a matter of course. Billy saw here his chance, and putting
+spurs to his horse he rode at full speed around the end of the thicket,
+hoping to reach the other side in time to intercept his cousin, in whose
+behalf he was now really alarmed. As he swept by the end of the
+thicket, however, he passed two gentlemen whom he could not see through
+the bushes, but whose voices he knew very well. They were none other
+than Mr. Foggy Raves and Dr. Charles Harrison, and Billy heard what they
+were saying.
+
+"You _must_ take the tail, Charley, and not let that city snob get it.
+The fool rides like Death on the pale horse, and don't seem to know
+there ever was a fence too high to jump. He'd try to take the Blue Ridge
+at a flying leap if it got in his way. I'd rather kill a dozen horses
+than let him beat us. He put his finger into our little game with that
+saphead Ewing, and----"
+
+"But my horse is thumped now, Foggy."
+
+"Well, take mine then. He's fresh. I sent him over last night to meet me
+here, and I just now changed. I've hurt my knee and can't ride. Take, my
+horse and ride him to death but what you beat that----"
+
+This was all that Billy had time to hear, but it was enough to change
+his entire purpose. He no longer thought of Robert's neck, but hurried
+on for the sole purpose of spurring his cousin up to new exertion. He
+reached the edge of the thicket just as Robert came out bare-headed,
+having lost his hat in the brush. His face was bleeding, too, from
+scratches and bruises received in the struggle through the oak thicket.
+The river was just ahead, but the fox doubled to the right instead of
+crossing.
+
+"Come, Bob," said Billy, "you've got to take the tail to-day or die.
+Foggy and Charley Harrison have been setting up a game on you, and
+Charley has a fresh horse, borrowed from Foggy on purpose to beat you.
+But this double gives you a quarter start of him. Don't _run_ your horse
+up hills, or you'll blow him out, and shy off from such thickets as
+that. You can ride round quicker than you can go through. _Don't break
+your_ NECK, BUT TAKE THE TAIL ANYHOW."
+
+He fairly yelled the last words at Robert, who was already a hundred
+yards ahead of him and getting further off every second.
+
+The effect of his words on his cousin was not precisely what might have
+been expected. Before this Robert had been intensely excited and had
+enjoyed being so, but his excitement had been the result of his high
+spirits and his keen zest for the sport in which he was engaged. He had
+astonished everybody by the utter recklessness of his riding, but had
+not shared at all in their astonishment or known that his riding was
+reckless. He had ridden hard simply because he thought that the proper
+thing to do and because he enjoyed doing it. He rode now for victory.
+His features lost the look of wild enjoyment which they had worn, and
+settled themselves into a firm, hard expression of dogged determination.
+Here was his opportunity to do battle with young Harrison; and from
+Billy's manner, rather than from his words, he knew that the contest was
+not one of generous rivalry on Harrison's part. He felt that there was a
+contemptuous sneer somewhere back of Billy's words, and the thought
+nettled him sorely. But he did not lose his head in the excitement. On
+the contrary, he felt the necessity now for care and coolness, and
+accordingly he immediately took pains to become both cool and careful.
+He knew that Harrison had an advantage in knowing the country, and he
+resolved to share that advantage. To this end he brought his horse down
+to an easy canter and waited for Harrison to come up. He then kept his
+eye constantly on his rival and used him as a guide. When Harrison
+avoided a thicket he avoided it also. If Harrison left the track of the
+hounds for the sake of cutting off an angle, Robert kept by his side.
+This angered Harrison, who had counted confidently upon having an
+advantage in these matters, and under the influence of his anger he
+spurred his horse unnecessarily and soon took a good deal of his
+freshness out of him.
+
+The two rode on almost side by side for miles. The fox was beginning to
+show his fatigue, and it was evident that the chase would soon end. Both
+the foremost riders discovered this, and both put forth every possible
+exertion to win. Just ahead of them lay a very dense thicket through
+which ran a narrow bridle-path barely wide enough for one horse, as
+Robert knew, for the thicket lay on Shirley plantation, the fox having
+run back almost immediately over his own track. It was evident now that
+"the catch" would occur in the field just beyond this thicket, and it
+was equally evident that as the two could not possibly ride abreast
+along the bridle-path, the one who could first put his horse into it
+would almost certainly be first in at the death. They rode like madmen,
+but Robert's horse was greatly fatigued and Harrison shot ahead of him
+by a single length into the path. There was hardly a chance for Robert
+now, as it was impossible in any case for him to pass his rival in the
+thicket, and he could see that the dogs had already caught the fox in
+the field, less than a rod beyond its edge.
+
+"I've got you now, I reckon," shouted Harrison looking back, but at the
+moment his horse stumbled and fell. Robert could no more stop his own
+horse than he could have stopped a hurricane, and the animal fell
+heavily over Harrison, throwing Robert about ten feet beyond and almost
+among the dogs. Getting up he ran in among the bellowing hounds and,
+catching the fox in his hand, he held him up in full view of the other
+gentlemen, now riding into the field from different directions and
+cheering as lustily as possible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+_Some very Unreasonable Conduct._
+
+
+Quite naturally Robert was elated as he stood there bare-headed, and
+received the congratulations of his companions, who had now come up and
+gathered around him. Loudest among them was Foggy, who leaping from his
+horse cried out:
+
+"By Jove, Mr. Pagebrook, I must shake your hand. I never saw prettier
+riding in my life, and I've seen some good riding too in my time. But
+where's your horse? Did you turn him loose when you jumped off?"
+
+This served to remind Robert of the animal and of Harrison too, and
+going hastily into the thicket he found the Doctor repairing his girth,
+which had been broken in the fall. The Doctor was not hurt, nor was his
+horse injured in any way, but the black colt which had carried Robert so
+gallantly lay dead upon the ground. An examination showed that in
+falling he had broken his neck.
+
+It was not far that our young friend had to walk to reach Shirley, but a
+weariness which he had not felt before crept over him as he walked. His
+head ached sorely, and as the excitement died away it was succeeded by
+a numbness of despondency, the like of which he had never known before.
+He had declined to "ride and tie" with Billy, thinking the task a small
+one to walk through by a woods path to the house, while Billy followed
+the main road. With his first feeling of despondency came bitter
+mortification at the thought that he had allowed so small a thing as a
+fox-chase to so excite him. The exertion had been well enough, but he
+felt that the object in view during the latter half of the chase,
+namely, the defeat of young Harrison, was one wholly unworthy of him,
+and the color came to his cheek as he thought of the energy he had
+wasted on so small an undertaking. Then he remembered the gallant animal
+sacrificed in the blind struggle for mere victory, and he could hardly
+force the tears back as the thought came to him in full force that the
+nostrils which had quivered with excitement so short a time since, would
+snuff the air no more forever. He felt guilty, almost of murder, and
+savagely rejoiced to know that the death of the horse would entail a
+pecuniary loss upon himself, which would in some sense avenge the wrong
+done to the noble brute.
+
+The numbness and weariness oppressed him so that he sat down at the root
+of a tree, and remained there in a state of half unconsciousness until
+Billy came from the house to look for him. Arrived at the house he went
+immediately to bed and into a fever which prostrated him for nearly a
+week, during which time he was not allowed to talk much; in point of
+fact he was not inclined to talk at all, except to Cousin Sudie, who
+moved quietly in and out of the room as occasion required and came to
+sit by his bedside frequently, after Billy and Col. Barksdale quitted
+home again to attend court in another of the adjoining counties, as they
+did as soon as Robert's physician pronounced him out of danger. At first
+Cousin Sudie was disposed to enforce the doctor's orders in regard to
+silence; but she soon discovered, quick-witted girl that she was, that
+_her_ talking soothed and quieted the patient, and so she talked to him
+in a soft, quiet voice, securing, by violating the doctor's injunction,
+precisely the result which the injunction was intended to secure. As
+soon as the fever quitted him Robert began to recover very rapidly, but
+he was greatly troubled about the still unpaid-for horse.
+
+Now he knew perfectly well that Cousin Sudie had no money at command,
+and he ought to have known that it was a very unreasonable proceeding
+upon his part to consult her in the matter. But love laughs at logic as
+well as at locksmiths, and so our logical young man very illogically
+concluded that the best thing to do in the premises was to consult
+Cousin Sudie.
+
+"I am in trouble, Cousin Sudie," said he, as he sat with her in the
+parlor one evening, "about that horse. I know Mr. Winger is a poor man,
+and I ought to pay him at once, but the truth is I have hardly any money
+with me, and there is no bank nearer than Richmond at which to get a
+draft cashed."
+
+"You have money enough, then, somewhere?" asked Cousin Sudie.
+
+"O yes! I have money in bank in Philadelphia, but Winger has already
+sent me a note asking immediate payment, and telling me he is sorely
+pressed for money; and I dislike exceedingly to ask his forbearance even
+for a week, under the circumstances."
+
+"Why can't you get Cousin Edwin to cash a check for you?" asked the
+business-like little woman; "he always has money, and will do it gladly,
+I know."
+
+"That had not occurred to me, but it is a good suggestion. If you will
+lend me your writing-desk I will write and----"
+
+"Ah, there comes Cousin Edwin now, and Ewing too, to see you," said Miss
+Sudie, hearing their voices in the porch.
+
+The visitors came into the parlor, and after a little while Sudie
+withdrew, intent upon some household matter. Ewing followed her. Robert
+spoke frankly of his wish to pay Winger promptly, and asked:
+
+"Can you cash my check on Philadelphia for me, Cousin Edwin, for three
+hundred dollars? Don't think of doing it, pray, if it is not perfectly
+convenient."
+
+"O it isn't inconvenient at all," said Major Pagebrook. "I have more
+money at home than I like to keep there, and I can let you have the
+amount and send your check to the bank in Richmond and have it credited
+to me quite as well as not. In fact I'd rather do it than not, as it'll
+save expressage on money."
+
+Accordingly Robert drew a check for three hundred dollars on his bankers
+in Philadelphia, making it payable to Major Pagebrook, and that
+gentleman undertook to pay the amount that evening to Winger. Shortly
+after this business matter had been settled, Ewing and Miss Sudie
+returned to the parlor and the callers took their departure.
+
+Robert and Sudie sat silent for some time watching the flicker of the
+fire, for the days were cool now and fires were necessary to in-door
+comfort. How long their silence might have continued but for an
+interruption, I do not know; but an interruption came in the breaking of
+the forestick, which had burned in two. A broken reverie may sometimes
+be resumed, but a pair of broken reveries never are. Had Mr. Robert been
+alone he would have rearranged the fire and then sat down to his
+thoughts again. As it was he rearranged the fire and then began to talk
+with Miss Sudie.
+
+"I am glad to get that business off my hands. It worried me," he said.
+
+"So am I," said his companion, "very glad indeed."
+
+There must have been something in her tone, as there was certainly
+nothing in her words, which led Mr. Pagebrook to think that this young
+lady's remark had an unexpressed meaning back of it. He therefore
+questioned her.
+
+"Why, Cousin Sudie? had it been troubling you too?"
+
+"No; but it would have done so, I reckon."
+
+"I do not understand you. Surely you never doubted that I would pay for
+the horse, did you?"
+
+"No indeed, but--"
+
+"What is it Cousin Sudie? tell me what there is in your mind. I shall
+feel hurt if you do not."
+
+"I ought not to tell you, but I must now, or you will imagine
+uncomfortable things. I know why Mr. Winger wrote you that note."
+
+"You know why? There was some reason then besides his need of money?"
+
+"He was not pressed for the money at all. That wasn't the reason."
+
+"You surprise me, Cousin Sudie. Pray tell me what you know, and how."
+
+"Well, promise me first that you won't get yourself into any trouble
+about it--no, I have no right to exact a blind promise--but do don't get
+into trouble. That detestable man, Foggy Raves, made Mr. Winger uneasy
+about the money. He told him you were 'hard up' and couldn't pay if you
+wanted to; and I'm glad you have paid him, and I'm glad you beat Charley
+Harrison in the fox-chase, too."
+
+With this utterly inconsequent conclusion, Cousin Sudie commenced
+rocking violently in her chair.
+
+"How do you know all this, Cousin Sudie?" asked Robert.
+
+"Ewing told me this evening. I'd rather you'd have killed a dozen horses
+than to have had Charley Harrison beat you."
+
+"Why, Cousin Sudie?"
+
+"O he's at the bottom of all this. He always is. Foggy is his
+mouth-piece. And then he told Aunt Catherine, the day you went to The
+Oaks, that he 'meant to have some fun when he got you into a fox-hunt on
+Winger's colt.' He said you'd find out how much your handsome city
+riding-school style was worth when you got on a horse you were afraid
+of. I'm _so_ glad you beat him!"
+
+[Illustration: MISS SUDIE DECLARES HERSELF "SO GLAD."]
+
+Now it would seem that Cousin Sudie's rejoicing must have been of a
+singular sort, as she very unreasonably burst into tears while in the
+very act of declaring herself glad.
+
+Mr. Robert Pagebrook was wholly unused to the task of soothing a woman
+in tears. It was his habit, under all circumstances, to do the thing
+proper to be done, but of what the proper thing was for a man to do or
+say to a woman in tears without apparent cause, Mr. Robert Pagebrook had
+not the faintest conception, and so he very unreasonably proceeded to
+take her hand in his and to tell her that he loved her, a fact which he
+himself just then discovered for the first time.
+
+Before he could add a word to the blunt declaration, Dick thrust his
+black head into the door-way with the announcement, "Supper's ready,
+Miss Sudie."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+_What Occurred Next Morning._
+
+
+The reader thinks, doubtless, that Master Dick's entrance at the precise
+time indicated in the last chapter was an unfortunate occurrence, and I
+presume Mr. Pagebrook was of a like opinion at the moment. But maturer
+reflection convinced him that the interruption was a peculiarly
+opportune one. He was a conscientious young man, and was particularly
+punctilious in matters of honor; wherefore, had he been allowed to
+complete the conversation thus unpremeditatedly begun, without an
+opportunity to deliberate upon the things to be said, he would almost
+certainly have suffered at the hands of his conscience in consequence.
+There were circumstances which made some explanations on his part
+necessary, and he knew perfectly well that these explanations would not
+have been properly made if Master Dick's interruption had not come to
+give him time for reflection.
+
+All this he thought as he drank his tea; for when supper was announced
+both he and Miss Sudie went into the dining-room precisely as if their
+talk in the parlor had been of no unusual character. This they did
+because they were creatures of habit, as you and I and all the rest of
+mankind are. They were in the habit of going to supper when it was
+ready, and it never entered the thought of either to act differently on
+this particular occasion. Miss Sudie, it is true, ran up to her room for
+a moment--to brush her hair I presume--before she entered the
+dining-room, but otherwise they both acted very much as they always did,
+except that Robert addressed almost the whole of his conversation during
+the meal to his Aunt Mary and Aunt Catherine, while Miss Sudie, sitting
+there behind the tea-tray, said nothing at all. After tea the older
+ladies sat with Robert and Sudie in the parlor, until the early bed-time
+prescribed for the convalescent young gentleman arrived.
+
+It thus happened that there was no opportunity for the resumption of the
+interesting conversation interrupted by Dick, until the middle of the
+forenoon next day. Miss Sudie, it seems, found it necessary to go into
+the garden to inspect some late horticultural operations, and Mr.
+Robert, quite accidentally, followed her. They discussed matters with
+Uncle Joe, the gardener, for a time, and then wandered off toward a
+summer-house, where it was pleasant to sit in the soft November
+sunlight.
+
+The conversation which followed was an interesting one, of course. Let
+us listen to it.
+
+"The vines are all killed by the frost," said Cousin Sudie.
+
+"Yes; you have frosts here earlier than I thought," said Robert.
+
+"O we always expect frost about the tenth of October; at least the
+gentlemen never feel safe if their tobacco isn't cut by that time. This
+year frost was late for us, but the nights are getting very cool now,
+a'n't they?"
+
+"Yes; I found blankets very comfortable even before the tenth of
+October."
+
+"It's lucky then that you wa'n't staying with Aunt Polly Barksdale."
+
+"Why? and who is your Aunt Polly?"
+
+"Aunt Polly? Why she is Uncle Charles's widow. She is the model for the
+whole connection; and I've had her held up to me as a pattern ever since
+I can remember, but I never saw her till about a year ago, when she came
+and staid a week or two with us; and between ourselves I think she is
+the most disagreeably good person I ever saw. She is good, but somehow
+she makes me wicked, and I don't think I'm naturally so. I didn't read
+my Bible once while she staid, and I do love to read it. I suppose I
+shall like to have her with me in heaven, if I get there, because there
+I won't have anything for her to help me about, but here 'I'm better
+midout' her."
+
+"I quite understand your feeling; but you haven't told me why I'm lucky
+not to have her for my hostess these cold nights."
+
+"O you'd be comfortable enough now that tobacco is cut; but when Cousin
+Billy staid with her, a good many years ago, he used to complain of
+being cold--he was only a boy--and ask her for blankets, and she would
+hold up her hands and exclaim: 'Why, child, your uncle's tobacco isn't
+cut yet! It will never do to say it's cold enough for blankets when your
+poor uncle hasn't got his tobacco cut. Think of your uncle, child! he
+can't afford to have his tobacco all killed.' But come, Cousin Robert,
+you mustn't sit here; besides I want to show you an experiment I am
+trying with winter cabbage."
+
+This, I believe, is a faithful report of what passed between Robert and
+Sudie in the summer-house. I am very well aware that they ought to have
+talked of other things, but they did not; and, as a faithful chronicler,
+I can only state the facts as they occurred, begging the reader to
+remember that I am in no way responsible for the conduct of these young
+people.
+
+The cabbage experiment duly explained and admired, Mr. Robert and Miss
+Sudie walked out of the garden and into the house. There they found
+themselves alone again, and Robert plunged at once into the matter of
+which both had been thinking all the time.
+
+"Cousin Sudie," he said, "have you thought about what I said to you last
+night?"
+
+"Yes--a little."
+
+"I will not ask you just yet _what_ you have thought," said Robert,
+taking her unresisting hand into his, "because there are some
+explanations which I am in honor bound to make to you before asking you
+to give me an answer, one way or the other. When I told you I loved you,
+of course I meant to ask you to be my wife, but that I must not ask you
+until you know exactly what I am. I want you to know precisely what it
+is that I ask you to do. I am a poor man, as you know. I have a good
+position, however, with a salary of two thousand dollars a year, and
+that is more than sufficient for the support of a family, particularly
+in an inexpensive college town; so that there is room for a little
+constant accumulation. If I marry, I shall insure my life for ten
+thousand dollars, so that my death shall not leave my wife destitute. I
+have a very small reserve fund in bank too--thirteen hundred dollars
+now, since I paid for that horse. And there is still three hundred
+dollars due me for last year's work. These are my means and my
+prospects, and now I tell you again, Sudie, that I love you, and I ask
+you bluntly will you marry me?"
+
+The young lady said nothing.
+
+"If you wish for time to think about it Sudie--"
+
+"I suppose that would be the proper way, according to custom; but,"
+raising her eyes fearlessly to his, "I have already made up my mind, and
+I do not want to act a falsehood. There is nothing to be ashamed of, I
+suppose, in frankly loving such a man as you, Robert. I will be your
+wife."
+
+The little woman felt wonderfully brave just then, and accordingly,
+without further ado, she commenced to cry.
+
+The reader would be very ill-mannered indeed should he listen further to
+a conversation which was wholly private and confidential in its
+character; wherefore let us close our ears and the chapter at once.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+_In which Mr. Pagebrook Bids his Friends Good-by._
+
+
+The next two or three days passed away very quickly with Mr. Robert and
+Miss Sudie. Robert made to his aunt a statement of the results, without
+entering into the details of his conferences with Miss Sudie, and was
+assured of Col. Barksdale's approval when that gentleman and Billy
+should return from the court they were attending. The two young people,
+however, were in no hurry for the day appointed for that return to come.
+They were very happy as it was. They discussed their future, and laid
+many little plans to be carried out after awhile. It was arranged that
+Robert should return to Virginia at the beginning of the next long
+vacation; that the wedding should take place immediately upon his
+coming; and that the two should make a little trip through the mountains
+and, returning to Shirley, remain there until the autumn should bring
+Robert's professional duties around again.
+
+They were in the very act of talking these matters over for the
+twentieth time, one afternoon, when Maj. Pagebrook rode up. He seemed
+absent and nervous in manner, and after a few moments of general
+conversation asked to see Robert alone upon business. When the two were
+closeted together Maj. Pagebrook opened his pocket-book and taking out a
+paper he slowly unfolded it, saying: "I have just received this, Robert,
+and I suppose there is a duplicate of it awaiting you in the
+post-office."
+
+Robert looked at the paper in blank astonishment.
+
+"What does this mean?" he cried; "my draft protested! Why I have sixteen
+hundred dollars in that bank, and my draft was for only three hundred."
+
+"It appears that the bank has failed," said Maj. Pagebrook. "At least I
+reckon that's what the Richmond people mean. They say, in a note to me,
+that it 'went to pot' a week ago. It seems there are a good many banks
+failing this fall. I hope you won't lose everything, though, Robert."
+
+The blow was a terrible one to the young man. In a moment he took in the
+entire situation. To lose the money he had in bank was to be forced to
+begin the world over again with absolutely nothing; but at any rate he
+could pay the debt he owed to his cousin very shortly, and to be free
+from debt is in itself a luxury to a man of his temperament. He thought
+but a moment and then said:
+
+"Cousin Edwin, I shall have to ask you to carry that protested draft for
+me a few days if you will. There is some money due me on the fifteenth
+of this month, and it is now the ninth. I asked that it should be sent
+to me here, but I shall go to Philadelphia at once, and I'll collect it
+when I get there and send you the amount. I promise you faithfully that
+it shall be remitted by the fifteenth at the very furthest."
+
+"O don't trouble yourself to be so exact, Robert," replied Maj.
+Pagebrook. "Send it when you can; I'm in no very great hurry. Sarah Ann
+says we must invest all our spare money in the new railroad stock; but I
+needn't pay anything on that till the twenty-third, so there will be
+time enough. But for that I wouldn't care how long I waited."
+
+"I shall not let it remain unpaid after the fifteenth at furthest," said
+Robert. "I do not like to let it lie even that long."
+
+Maj. Pagebrook took his departure and Robert told Sudie of the bad news,
+telling her also that he must leave next morning for Philadelphia, to
+see if it were possible to save something from the wreck of the bank.
+
+"Besides," said he, "I must get to work. There are nearly two months of
+time between now and the first of January, and I cannot afford to lose
+it now that I have lost this money."
+
+"What will you do, Robert? You can't do anything teaching in that time."
+
+"No, but I can do a good many things. I write a little now and then for
+the papers and magazines, for one thing. I can pick up something, I
+think, which will at least pay expenses."
+
+He then told her of his arrangement with Maj. Pagebrook about the
+protested draft, and finished by repeating what that gentleman had said
+about the investment in railroad stock.
+
+This troubled Miss Sudie more than all the rest, and Robert seeing it
+pressed her for a reason. But no reason would she give, and Robert was
+forced to content himself with the thought that his trouble naturally
+brought trouble to her. To her aunt, however, she expressed her
+conviction that Cousin Sarah Ann had suggested the railroad investment
+merely for the sake of compelling her husband to press Robert for
+payment. She was troubled to know that the payment must be deferred even
+for a few days, but rejoiced in the knowledge of Robert's ability to
+discharge his indebtedness speedily. It galled her to think of the
+unpleasant things which the amiable mistress of The Oaks would manage to
+say about Robert pending the payment. There was no help for it, however,
+and so the brave little woman persuaded herself that it was her duty to
+appear cheerful in order that Robert might be so; and whatever Miss
+Sudie believed to be her duty in any case Miss Sudie did, however
+difficult the doing might be. She accordingly wore the pleasantest
+possible smile and the most cheerful of countenances whenever Robert was
+present, doing every particle of her necessary crying in her own room
+and carefully washing away all traces of the process before opening the
+door.
+
+Robert made all his preparations for departure that afternoon, and on
+the following morning was driven to the Court House in the family
+carriage. When he arrived there he got what letters there were for him
+in the post-office, read them, and talked a few moments with Ewing
+Pagebrook, who had spent the preceding night with Foggy and Dr.
+Harrison, and was now deeply contrite and rather anxious than otherwise
+that Robert should scold him. There was no time, however, even for the
+giving of advice, as the train had now come, and Robert must go at once.
+A hasty hand-shaking closed the interview, and Robert was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Goes to Work._
+
+
+When Robert arrived in Philadelphia his first care was to make inquiries
+with regard to the bank in which his money was deposited. He learned
+that it had suspended payment about one week before, and that its
+affairs were in the hands of an assignee. This was all he could find out
+on the afternoon of his arrival, and with this he was forced to content
+himself until the next day, when he succeeded with some little
+difficulty in securing an interview with the assignee. To him he said:
+"My only purpose is to ascertain the exact state of the bank's affairs,
+in order that I may know what to do."
+
+"That I cannot tell you, sir. The books are still in confusion, and
+until they can be straightened out it is impossible to say what the
+result will be."
+
+"Tell me, then, are the assets anything like equal to the liabilities?"
+
+"That is exactly what the books must show. I can't say till we get a
+statement."
+
+"You can at least tell me then," said Robert, provoked at the man's
+reticence, "whether there are any assets at all, or not."
+
+"No, I can make no statement until the books are examined. Then a
+complete exhibit of affairs will be made."
+
+"Pardon me," said Robert, "but this question is one of serious moment
+to me. You have been examining this bank's affairs for a week, I
+believe?"
+
+"Yes, about a week."
+
+"You must have some idea, then, whether or not there is likely to be
+anything at all left for depositors, and you will oblige me very much
+indeed by giving me your personal opinion on the subject. I understand
+how impossible it is to give exact figures; but you cannot have failed
+to discover by this time whether or not the assets amount to anything
+worth considering, as compared with the amount of the bank's
+liabilities. I would like the little information you can give me,
+however inexact it may be."
+
+"My dear sir," said the assignee, "I'm afraid you don't understand these
+things. Our statement is not ready yet, and I can not possibly tell you
+what its nature will be until it is."
+
+"When will it be ready, sir?" asked Robert.
+
+"That I can not say as yet, but it will be forthcoming in due time, sir;
+in due time."
+
+"Will it require a week, or a month, or two or three months? You can, at
+least, make an approximate estimate of the time necessary for its
+preparation."
+
+"Well, no," said the man of business, "I should not like to make any
+promises; I am hard at work, and the statement will be ready in due
+time, sir; in due time."
+
+Robert left the man's presence thoroughly disgusted. Thinking the matter
+over he concluded that the affairs of the bank must be in a very bad
+way. Otherwise, he argued, the man would not be so silent on the
+subject.
+
+Now the assignee was perfectly right in saying that Robert did not
+understand these things. If he had understood them he would have known
+that the reticence from which he thus argued the worst, meant just
+nothing at all. Business men are not apt to commit themselves
+unnecessarily in any case, and especially in such a case as the one
+concerning which Robert had been inquiring. The bank might have been
+utterly bankrupt or entirely solvent, and that assignee would in either
+case have given precisely the same answers to our young friend's
+questions. He knew nothing with absolute certainty as yet, and could
+know nothing certainly until the last column of figures should be added
+up and the final balances struck. Then he could make a statement, but
+until then he would say nothing at all. He acted after his kind.
+Business is business; and, as a rule, business men know only one way of
+doing things.
+
+Robert, however, was not a business man. He knew nothing about these
+things, and accordingly, making no allowance for a business habit as one
+of the factors in the problem, he proceeded to argue that if the affairs
+of the bank were in the least degree hopeful the man would have said so.
+As he had carefully and persistently avoided saying anything of the
+kind, Robert could only conclude that there was no hope at all to be
+entertained.
+
+He quickly determined, therefore, to waste no more time. Abandoning his
+sixteen hundred dollars as utterly lost, he packed his valise and went
+at once to New York to find work of some kind. How he succeeded we shall
+best see from his letter to Cousin Sudie, from which I am allowed to
+quote a passage or two.
+
+"I am very busy with some topical articles, as the newspaper folk call
+them. That is to say, I am visiting factories of various kinds and
+writing detailed accounts of their operations, coupling with the facts
+gathered thus, a gossipy account of the origin, history, etc., of the
+industry. I find the work very interesting, and it promises to be quite
+remunerative too. I fell into it by accident. About a year ago I spent
+an evening with a friend, Mr. Dudley, in New York, and while at his
+house his seven year old boy showed me some of his toys--little German
+contrivances; and I, knowing something about the toys and the people who
+make them--you know I made a summer trip through Europe once--fell to
+telling him about them. His father was as much interested as he, but the
+matter soon passed from my mind. When I came over here a week ago to
+look for something to do I visited the office of this paper, hoping that
+I should be allowed to do a little reporting or drudgery of some sort
+till something better should turn up. Who should I find in the editor's
+chair but my friend Dudley. I told him my errand, and his reply was:
+
+"'I haven't a moment now, Pagebrook, but you're the very man I want;
+come up and see me this evening. We dine at half-past six, and over our
+roast-beef I can explain fully what I mean.'
+
+"I went, as a matter of course, and at dinner Dudley said:
+
+"'Our paper, Pagebrook, is meant to be a kind of American Penny
+Magazine. That is to say, we want to fill it full of _entertaining_
+information, partly for the sake of the information but more for the
+sake of the entertainment. Now I have tried at least fifty people, in
+the hope of finding somebody who could tell, in writing, just such
+things as you told our Ben when you were here a year ago. I never
+dreamed of getting you to do it, but you're just the man, and about the
+only one, too, I begin to think. Now, if you've a mind to do it, I can
+keep you busy as long as you like. I don't mean to confine you to this
+particular kind of work, but I'd rather have articles of that sort than
+any others, and the publishers won't grumble if I pay you twenty dollars
+apiece for them. They mustn't exceed two of our columns--say two
+thousand words in all--but if you can't tell your story in any
+particular instance within those limits, you can make two articles out
+of it. I've already told your toy story, but you can easily hunt up
+plenty of other things to tell about. Common things are best--things
+people see every day but know nothing about.'
+
+"I set to work the next day, and have been busy ever since. I like to
+visit factories and learn all the petty details of their operations, and
+I find that it is the petty details which go to make the description
+interesting. I like the work so well that I almost wish I had no
+professorship, so that I might follow as a business this kind of
+writing, and some other sorts in which I seem to succeed--for I do not
+confine myself to one class of articles, or to one paper either, for
+that matter, but am trying my hand at a variety of things, and I find
+the work very fascinating. But it is altogether better, I suppose, that
+I should retain my position in the college, even if I could be sure of
+always finding as good a market as I do just now for my wares, which is
+doubtful. I have lost the whole of my little reserve fund--as the bank
+seems hopelessly broken; and if I had nothing to depend upon except the
+problematic sale of articles, I would do you a wrong to ask you to let
+our wedding-day remain fixed. As it is, my salary from the college is
+more than sufficient for our support, and as my expenses from now until
+the time appointed will be very small indeed, I shall have several
+hundred dollars accumulated by that time; wherefore if Uncle Carter does
+not object, pray let our plans remain undisturbed, will you not, Sudie?"
+
+The rest of this letter, which is a very long one, is not only personal
+in its character, but is also of a strictly private nature; and while I
+am free to copy here so much of this and other letters in my possession
+as will aid me in the telling of my story, I do not feel myself at
+liberty to let the reader into the sacred inner chambers of a
+correspondence with which we have properly no concern, except as it
+helps us to the understanding of this history.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+_A Short Chapter, not very interesting, perhaps, but of some Importance
+in the Story, as the Reader will probably discover after awhile._
+
+
+When the letter from which a quotation was made in the preceding chapter
+came to Miss Sudie, that young lady was not at Shirley but at The Oaks,
+where Ewing was lying very ill. He had been prostrated suddenly, a few
+days before, and from the first had been delirious with fever. The
+doctor had appeared unusually anxious regarding his patient ever since
+he was first summoned to see him, and Cousin Sarah Ann having given way
+to her alarm at the evident danger in which her son lay to such an
+extent as to be wholly useless to herself or to anybody else, Miss Sudie
+had been called in to act as temporary mistress of the mansion.
+
+The very next mail after the one which brought her letter, had in it one
+from Robert addressed to Ewing himself. Miss Sudie, upon discovering it
+in the bag, carried it to Cousin Sarah Ann, and was very decidedly
+shocked when that estimable lady without a word broke the seal and read
+the letter, putting it carefully away afterwards in Ewing's desk, of
+which she had the key. Miss Sudie said nothing, however, and the matter
+was almost forgotten when in the evening the doctor came and sat down by
+the sick boy's bed.
+
+"I think it my duty to tell you," said he to Cousin Sarah Ann, "that the
+crisis of the disease is rapidly approaching, and I must wait here until
+it passes. Your son is in very great danger; but we shall know within a
+few hours whether there is hope for him or not. I confess that while I
+hope the best I fear the worst."
+
+Mrs. Pagebrook was thoroughly overcome by her fright. She loved her son,
+in her own queer way; and being a very weak woman she gave way entirely
+when she understood in how very critical a condition the boy was. It was
+necessary to exclude her from the room, and the doctor remained, with
+Miss Sudie and Maj. Pagebrook. About midnight he stood and looked
+intently at the sick man's features, listening also to his hard-coming
+breath. He stood there full half an hour--then turning to Miss Sudie, he
+said:
+
+"It's of no use, Miss Barksdale. Our young friend is beyond hope. He
+cannot live an hour. Perhaps you'd better inform his mother."
+
+But before Miss Sudie could leave the bedside, Ewing roused himself for
+a moment, and tried to say something to her.
+
+"Tell Robert--I got sick the very day--twenty-one--"
+
+This was all Miss Sudie could hear, and she thought the patient's mind
+was wandering still, as it had been throughout his illness. And these
+incoherent words were the last the young man ever uttered.
+
+About a week after Ewing's death Cousin Sarah Ann said to Maj.
+Pagebrook:
+
+"Cousin Edwin, are you ever going to collect that money from Robert? He
+promised to pay you on or before the fifteenth of November, and now it's
+nearly the last of the month and you haven't a line of explanation from
+him yet. I told you he wouldn't pay it till we made him. You oughtn't
+to've let him run away in your debt at all, and you wouldn't either, if
+you'd a'listened to me. Why don't you write to him?"
+
+"Well, I don't like to press the poor fellow. He's lost his money you
+know, and I reckon he finds it hard to pull through till January. He'll
+pay when he can, I reckon."
+
+"O that's always the way with you! For my part I don't believe he had
+any money in the bank; and besides he said there was some money coming
+to him on his salary, and he promised faithfully to pay you out of that.
+I told you he wouldn't, because I knew him. He tried to make out he was
+so much superior to the rest of us, and talked about 'reforming' poor
+Ewing, just as if the poor boy was a drunkard and--and--and--if you
+don't write I will, and I'll make him pay that money too, or I'll know
+why."
+
+The conversation ended as such conversations usually did in Maj.
+Pagebrook's family, namely, by the abrupt departure of that gentleman
+from the house.
+
+Cousin Sarah Ann evidently meant what she said, and her husband was no
+sooner out of the house than she got out her desk and wrote; not to
+Robert, however, but to Messrs. Steel, Flint & Sharp, attorneys and
+counselors at law, in New York city. Her note was not a long one, but it
+told the whole story of Robert's indebtedness from a not very favorable
+point of view, and closed with a request that the attorneys should "push
+the case by every means the law allows." This note was signed not with
+Cousin Sarah Ann's own but with her husband's name, and her first
+proceeding, after sealing the letter, was to send it by a servant to the
+post-office. She then ordered her carriage and drove over to Shirley.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+_Cousin Sarah Ann Takes Robert's Part._
+
+
+Cousin Sarah Ann talked a good deal. Ill-natured people sometimes said
+she talked a good deal of nonsense, and possibly she did, but she never
+talked without a purpose, and she commonly managed to talk pretty
+successfully, too, so far as the accomplishment of her ends was
+concerned. In the present case, while I am wholly unprepared to say
+exactly why she wanted to talk, I am convinced that this excellent
+lady's visit to Shirley was undertaken solely for the purpose of
+securing an opportunity to talk.
+
+Arrived there, she greeted her friends with her black-bordered
+handkerchief over her eyes, and for a time seemed hardly able to speak
+at all, so overpowering was her emotion. Then she said:
+
+"I wouldn't think of visiting at such a time as this, of course, but
+Shirley seems so much like home, and I felt like I must have somebody to
+talk to who could sympathize with me. Dear Sudie was _so_ good to me
+during--during it all."
+
+After a time Cousin Sarah Ann composed herself, and controlled her
+emotion sufficiently to converse connectedly without making painful
+pauses, though her voice continued from first to last to be
+uncomfortably suggestive of recent weeping.
+
+"Have you had any news of Robert lately?" she asked; "I do hope he's
+doing well."
+
+"We've had no letters since Sudie's came while she was at your house,"
+said Colonel Barksdale. "He was doing very well then, I believe, though
+he thought there was no hope of recovering anything from the bank."
+
+"I'm _so_ sorry," said Cousin Sarah Ann, "for I love Robert. He was so
+like an older brother to my poor boy. I feel just like a mother to him,
+and I can't bear to have anybody say anything against him."
+
+"Nobody ever does say anything to his discredit, I suppose," said Col.
+Barksdale. "He is really one of the finest young men I ever knew, and
+the very soul of honor, too. He comes honestly by that, however, for his
+father was just so before him."
+
+"That's just what I tell Cousin Edwin," said Cousin Sarah Ann. "I tell
+him dear Robert means to do right, and will do it just as soon as ever
+he can. Poor fellow! he has been _so_ unfortunate. Somebody must have
+made Cousin Edwin suspicious of him, else he wouldn't think so badly of
+poor Robert."
+
+"Why, Sarah Ann, what do you mean?" asked Col. Barksdale. "Surely Edwin
+has no reason to think ill of Robert."
+
+"No, that he hasn't; and that's what I tell him. But he's been
+prejudiced and won't hear a word. He says nothing about it to anybody
+but me, but he really suspects Robert of meaning to cheat him, and--"
+
+"Cheat him!" cried all in a breath, "Why, how can that be?"
+
+"O it _can't_ be, and so I tell Cousin Edwin; but he insists that Robert
+told him he would pay that three hundred dollars on or before the
+fifteenth, and I reckon the poor boy hasn't been able to do it, or he
+would."
+
+"Why, Sarah Ann, you don't tell me that Robert has failed to pay Edwin
+that money!" said the Colonel.
+
+"Why, I thought you knew that, or I wouldn't have told you about it. No,
+he hasn't sent it yet; but he will, of course, if I can keep Cousin
+Edwin from writing him violent letters about it."
+
+"Hasn't he written to explain the delay?" asked the Colonel.
+
+"No; and that's what Cousin Edwin always reminds me of when I try to
+take Robert's part. He says if he meant to be honest he would have
+written. I tell him I know how it is. I can fully understand Robert's
+silence. He has failed to get money when he expected it, I reckon, and
+has naturally hated to write till he could send the money. Poor boy! I'm
+afraid he'll overwork himself and half starve himself, too, trying to
+get that money together, when we could wait for it just as well as not."
+
+"There certainly can be no apology for his failure to write, after
+promising payment on a definite day," said Col. Barksdale; "and I am
+both surprised and grieved that he should have acted in so unworthy a
+way!"
+
+With this the Colonel arose and paced the room in evident anger.
+Robert's champion, Cousin Sarah Ann, could not stand this.
+
+"Surely _you_ are not going to turn against poor Robert without giving
+him a hearing, are you, Cousin Carter? I thought you too just for that,
+though I should never have mentioned the subject at all if I hadn't
+thought you all knew about it, and would take Robert's part like me."
+
+"I shall give him a hearing," said the Colonel; "but in the meantime I
+must say his conduct has been very singular--very singular indeed."
+
+"O he's only thoughtless!" said the excellent woman, in her anxiety to
+shield "dear Robert."
+
+"No; he is not thoughtless. He never is thoughtless, whatever else he
+may be. If you wish to defend him, Sarah Ann, you must find some other
+excuse for his conduct. Confound the fellow! I can't help loving him,
+but if he isn't what I took him for, I'll----"
+
+The Colonel did not finish his threat; perhaps he hardly knew how.
+
+"Now, Cousin Carter, please don't you fly into a passion like Cousin
+Edwin does," said Cousin Sarah Ann, pleadingly, "but wait till you find
+out all the facts. Write to Robert, and I'm sure he will explain it all.
+I wish I hadn't said a word about it."
+
+"You did perfectly right, perfectly," said Colonel Barksdale. "If Robert
+has failed in a point of honor, I ought to know it, because in that case
+I have a duty to do--a painful one, but a duty nevertheless."
+
+"O you men have no charity at all. You're _so_ hard on one another, and
+I'm so sorry I said anything about it. Good-by, Cousin Mary. Good-by,
+Sudie dear. Come and see me, won't you? I miss you _so_ much in my
+trouble. Come often. Come and stay some with me. Do. That's a dear."
+
+And so Cousin Sarah Ann drove away, rejoicing in the consciousness that
+she had vigorously defended the absent Robert; and perhaps rejoicing too
+in the conviction that that gentleman could not possibly explain his
+conduct to the satisfaction of Colonel Barksdale.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+_Miss Barksdale Expresses some Opinions._
+
+
+Miss Sudie Barksdale was a very brave little woman, and she needed all
+her courage on the present occasion. She felt the absolute necessity
+there was that she should sit out Cousin Sarah Ann's conversation, and
+she sat it out, in what agony it is not hard to imagine. When that lady
+drove away Miss Sudie ran off to her room, where she remained for two or
+three hours. Upon her privacy we will not intrude.
+
+Col. Barksdale called Billy from his office, and giving him the newly
+discovered facts, asked his opinion. Billy was simply thunderstruck.
+
+"I can't understand it," said he; "Bob certainly had that money coming
+to him from his last year's salary, for he told me about it the day we
+first met in Philadelphia. If Bob isn't a man of honor, in the strictest
+sense of the term, I never was so deceived in anybody in my life. And
+yet this business looks as ugly as home-made sin. Bob knew perfectly
+well that if you or I had been at home when he left we wouldn't have
+allowed his protested draft to stand over at all, but would have paid it
+on the spot. He knew too that if he couldn't pay when he promised he
+could have written to me or to you explaining the matter, and we would
+have lent him the money for twenty years if necessary. I don't
+understand it at all. It looks ugly. It looks as if he meant to make
+that money clear."
+
+"Well, my son," said Col. Barksdale, "I'll give him one chance to
+explain at any rate. I'll write to him immediately."
+
+Accordingly the old gentleman went to his library and was engaged for
+some time in writing. After awhile there came a knock at his door, and
+Miss Sudie entered.
+
+"Come in, daughter," said he, tenderly. "I want to talk with you."
+
+"I thought you would," said the sad-eyed little maiden, "and that's why
+I came. I wanted our talk to be private."
+
+"You're a good girl, my child." Then, after a pause, "This is bad news
+about Robert."
+
+"Yes; and from a bad source," said Sudie.
+
+"I do not understand you, daughter."
+
+"We have the best of authority, Uncle Carter, for saying that 'men do
+not gather grapes of thorns!'"
+
+"But, my child, I suppose there can be no doubt of the facts in this
+case, so far as we have them. We know the circumstances of Robert's
+indebtedness to Edwin, and whatever her motives may have been, Sarah Ann
+would hardly venture to say that he has neither paid nor written in
+explanation of his failure to do so, if he had done either."
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"Robert ought to have paid at any cost to himself if it were possible;
+and if it were not, then he should have written in a frank, manly way,
+explaining his inability to fulfill his promise. Appearances are so
+strongly against him that I have written with very little hope of
+eliciting any satisfactory reply."
+
+"Will you mind letting me see what you have written, Uncle Carter?"
+
+"No; you may read the letter. Here it is."
+
+Miss Sudie read it. It ran thus:
+
+"I have just now learned that you have wholly failed to fulfill your
+solemn and deliberate promise, made on the eve of your departure from
+Shirley, to the effect that you would, without fail, take up your
+protested draft for three hundred dollars ($300), held by your Cousin
+Major Edwin Pagebrook, on or before the fifteenth (15th), day of this
+current month. It is now the thirtieth (30th), and hence your promise is
+fifteen (15) days over due. I learn also that you have failed to write
+in explanation of your delinquency or in any way to account or apologise
+for it. Permit me to say that as your conduct presents itself to me at
+this time, it is unworthy the gentleman which you profess to be, and I
+now demand of you either that you shall give me immediately a
+satisfactory explanation of the matter--and that, I must confess, sir,
+seems hardly possible--or that you shall at once write to my niece and
+adopted daughter, releasing her from her engagement with you."
+
+Having finished reading the letter Sudie handed it back to her uncle
+without a word of comment. Not that she was in this or in any other case
+afraid to express her opinion. Her uncle knew very well when he gave her
+the letter that she would say absolutely nothing about it until he
+should ask her, and he knew equally well that upon asking her he would
+get a perfectly honest expression of her thought, whatever it might
+happen to be. But Colonel Barksdale was, for the time, afraid to ask her
+opinion. He was a brave man and an honest one. He was known throughout
+the state as a lawyer of great ability and as a gentleman of the most
+undoubted sort. And yet at this moment he found himself afraid of a
+young girl, who stood in the relation of daughter to him--a girl who was
+never violent in word or act, a girl who honored him as a father and
+loved him with all her heart. He knew she would unhesitatingly speak the
+truth, and it was the truth of which he was afraid. He had not been
+aware, when he wrote, of any disposition to do Robert injustice, else,
+being a just man, he would have spurned the thought from him; but now
+that he felt bound to ask Miss Sudie for her opinion of his course, he
+became uncomfortably conscious that there had been other impulses than
+just ones governing him in his choice of language. At last he asked the
+dreaded question.
+
+"What do you think, daughter?"
+
+"I think you have not done yourself justice, Uncle Carter, in writing
+such a letter as that. The letter is not like you, at all."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Do you mean why and wherefore?"
+
+"Yes. Why and wherefore, Sudie?"
+
+"Because it is not like you to do an act of injustice, and when you are
+betrayed into one you misrepresent yourself."
+
+"But wherein is my letter an act of injustice, my child?"
+
+"It assumes unproved guilt; and I believe even criminals are entitled to
+a more favorable starting-point than that in their efforts to clear
+themselves."
+
+"But, Sudie, I have not assumed that Robert is guilty. I have asked him
+to explain."
+
+"Yes; and in the very act of asking him to explain to you, his judge,
+you have assured him from the bench that the court believes an
+explanation impossible."
+
+"Have I? Let me see."
+
+After looking at the letter again he resumed:
+
+"I believe you are right about that; I will rewrite the letter, omitting
+the objectionable clause. Is that all Sudie?"
+
+"Perhaps when you come to rewrite the letter you will see that its tone
+is as unjust as any words could possibly be. It seems so to me."
+
+"Let me try my hand again, daughter. Keep your seat please while I write
+a new letter instead of rewriting the old one."
+
+"There. How will that do?" he asked, as he handed the young woman this
+hastily-written note.
+
+     "MY DEAR ROBERT: We have just been hearing some news of you, which
+     I trust you will be able to contradict or explain. It is that you
+     have failed to keep your promise in the matter of your indebtedness
+     to Major Pagebrook, and that you have not even offered a word by
+     way of apology or explanation. The peculiar relations in which you
+     now stand to my family justify me, I think, in asking you to
+     explain a matter which, unexplained, must reflect upon your
+     character as an honorable man. Please write to me by return mail."
+
+"That is more like you, Uncle Carter. But I am sorry to find that you
+are convinced, in advance, of Robert's guilt. You propose to sit in
+judgment upon his case, and a court should not only appear but be free
+from bias."
+
+"Why, my daughter, I can hardly see how there can be any possible excuse
+in a case like this. You cannot deny that both facts and appearances are
+against him."
+
+"I doubt whether we have the facts yet, Uncle Carter. Aside from my
+knowledge of Cous--of Sarah Ann Pagebrook's general character, I saw
+her do a dishonorable thing once. I saw her open and read a letter which
+was not addressed to her, and I have no faith whatever in her, or in any
+statement which comes from her or through her."
+
+Colonel Barksdale was probably not sorry that the conversation was
+interrupted at this point by the entrance of a servant announcing a
+client. He felt that it would be idle to argue with Sudie in a matter in
+which her feelings were strongly enlisted, and he felt that in calling
+Robert to an account he was doing a simple duty. He was, therefore,
+rather pleased than otherwise to have an accident terminate a
+conversation which did not promise to terminate itself agreeably.
+
+Miss Sudie went to her room and wrote to Robert on her own account. I am
+not at liberty to print her letter here, as I should greatly like to do,
+but the reader will readily guess its general nature. She told Robert in
+detail everything that had been said concerning him that day. She told
+him of her uncle's anger, and of the probability that everybody would
+believe him guilty if he failed to establish his innocence; but she
+assured him that she, at least, had no idea of doubting him for a
+moment.
+
+"For your sake," she wrote, "I hope you will be able to offer a
+convincing explanation; but whether you can do that or not, Robert, _I
+know_ that you are true and manly, and not even facts shall ever make me
+doubt your truth. I may never be able to see how your action has been
+right, but I shall know, nevertheless, that it has been so. My woman
+love is truer, to me at least, than logic--truer than fact--truer than
+truth itself."
+
+All this was very illogical--very unreasonable, but very natural. It was
+"just like a woman" to set her emotions up in a holy place and compel
+her reason to do homage to them as to a god. And that is the very best
+thing there is about women, too. You and I, sir, would fare badly if in
+naming a woman wife we could not feel assured that her love will ever
+override her reason in matters concerning us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+_Mr. Sharp Does His Duty._
+
+
+The law firm of Steel, Flint & Sharp was a thoroughly well constituted
+one. Its organization was an admirable example of means perfectly
+adapted to the accomplishment of ends. It was not an eminent firm but it
+was an eminently successful one, particularly in the lines of business
+to which it gave special attention, and the leading one of these was
+collecting doubtful debts, as Cousin Sarah Ann had learned from one of
+the firm's cards which had fallen in her way. Indeed it was the
+accidental possession of this card which enabled her to put the matter
+of Robert's indebtedness into the hands of New York attorneys, and I
+suspect that she would never have thought of doing so at all but for the
+enticing words, fairly printed upon the card--"particular attention
+given to the collection of doubtful debts, due to non-residents of New
+York."
+
+A prophet, we know, is not without honor save in his own country, and so
+it is not strange that the people who familiarly knew the countenances
+of the gentlemen composing the firm of Steel, Flint & Sharp, esteemed
+these gentlemen less highly than did those other people, resident
+outside of New York, who could know these counselors at law only through
+their profusely distributed cards and circulars. Such was the fact; and
+as a result it happened that the clients of the firm were chiefly people
+who, living in other parts of the country, were compelled to intrust
+their business in New York to the hands of whatever attorneys they
+believed were the leading ones in the metropolis. And it was to let
+people know who were the leading lawyers of the city, that Messrs.
+Steel, Flint & Sharp industriously scattered their cards and circulars
+throughout the country.
+
+Who Mr. Steel was I do not know, and I am strongly inclined to suspect
+that the rest of the world, including his partners, were in a state of
+equal ignorance. He was never seen about the firm's offices, and never
+represented anybody in court, but he was frequently referred to by his
+partners, especially when clients were disposed to complain of
+apparently exorbitant charges.
+
+"Mr. Steel can not give his attention to a case, sir, for nothing. His
+reputation is at stake, sir, in all we undertake. I really do not feel
+at liberty to ask Mr. Steel to authorize any reduction in this case,
+sir. He gave his personal attention to the papers--his personal
+attention, sir."
+
+And this would commonly send clients away suppressed, if not satisfied.
+
+Mr. Flint was well enough known. He managed the business of the firm. It
+was he who always knew precisely what Mr. Steel's opinion was. He
+alone, of all the world, was able to speak positively of matters
+concerning Mr. Steel. Mr. Sharp was his junior in the firm, though
+considerably his senior in years. For Mr. Sharp Mr. Flint entertained
+not one particle of respect, because that gentleman was not always what
+his name implied. Mr. Sharp left to himself would have been hopelessly
+honest and straightforward. He would have gone to the dogs, speedily,
+Mr. Flint said, but for his association with himself.
+
+"But you have excellent ability in your way, Sharp, excellent ability,"
+he would say when in a good humor. "You are a capital executive
+officer--a very good lieutenant. Your ideas of what to do in any given
+case are not always good, but when I tell you what to do you do it,
+Sharp. I always know you will do what I tell you, and do it well too."
+
+Mr. Sharp usually came to the office an hour earlier than Mr. Flint did,
+in order that he might have everything ready for Mr. Flint's examination
+when that gentleman should arrive. He read the letters, drew up papers,
+and was prepared to give his partner in each case the facts upon which
+his opinion or advice was necessary.
+
+On the morning of December 3d, Mr. Flint came softly into his office
+and, after hanging up his overcoat and warming his hands at the
+register, went into his inner den, saying, as he sat down:
+
+"I'm ready for you now, Sharp."
+
+Mr. Sharp arose from his desk and entered the private room, with his
+hands full of papers.
+
+"What's the first thing on docket, Sharp?"
+
+"Well, here's a collection to be made. Debtor, Robert Pagebrook,
+temporarily in the city. Boarding place not known. Writes for the
+newspapers, so I can easily find him. Creditor Edwin Pagebrook, of ----
+Court House, Virginia. Debtor got creditor to cash draft for three
+hundred dollars. Draft protested. Debtor came away, and promised to take
+up paper by fifteenth November. Hasn't done it. Instructions 'push
+him.'"
+
+"Any limitations?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What have you done?"
+
+"Nothing yet; I'll look him up to-day and dun him."
+
+"Yes, and let him get away from you. Sharp do you know that Julius Caesar
+is dead?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"I'm glad to hear that you do know something then. Don't you see the
+point in this case? Go and make out affidavits on information. This
+fellow Robert what's his name is a 'transient,' and we'll get an order
+of arrest all ready and then you can dun him with some sense. Have your
+officer with you or convenient, and if he don't pay up, chuck him in
+jail. That's the way to do it. Never waste time dunning 'transients'
+when there's a ghost of a chance to cage them."
+
+"Well, but there don't seem to be any fraud here. The man seems to have
+had funds in the bank, only the bank suspended."
+
+"Sharp, you'll learn a little law after awhile, I hope. Don't you know
+the courts never look very sharply after cases where transients are
+concerned? How do we know he had money in the bank? Is there anything to
+show it?"
+
+"No; I believe not."
+
+"Well, then, don't you go to making facts in the interest of the other
+side. Let him make that out if he can. You just draw your affidavits to
+suit our purposes, not his. Go on to state that he drew a certain bill
+of exchange, and represented that he had funds, and so fraudulently
+obtained money, and all that; and then go on to say that his draft upon
+presentation was protested, and that instead of making it good he
+absconded. Be sure to say absconded, Sharp, it's half the battle. Courts
+haven't much use for men that abscond and then turn up in New York. Make
+your case strong enough, though. We only swear on information, you know,
+so if we do put it a little strong it don't matter. There. Go and fix it
+up right away, and then catch your man."
+
+A few hours later, as Robert Pagebrook sat writing in his room, Mr.
+Sharp and another man were shown in. Mr. Sharp opened the conversation.
+
+"This is Mr. Pagebrook, I believe?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Mr. _Robert_ Pagebrook?"
+
+"Yes. That is my name."
+
+"Thank you. My name is Sharp, of the firm of Steel, Flint & Sharp.
+That's our card, sir. I have called to solicit the payment, sir, of a
+small amount due Mr. Edwin Pagebrook, who has written asking us to
+collect it for him. The amount is three hundred dollars, I think.
+Yes. Here is the draft. Can you let me have the money to-day, Mr.
+Pagebrook?"
+
+"I have already remitted one third the amount, sir," said Robert, "and I
+hope to send the remainder in installments very soon. At present it is
+simply impossible for me to pay anything more."
+
+"Have you a receipt for the amount remitted?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"No. It was sent only yesterday. But if you will hold the draft a week
+or ten days longer, I will be able, within that time, to earn the whole
+of the amount remaining due, and your client will advise you, I am sure,
+of the receipt of the hundred dollars already sent."
+
+"We are not authorised to wait, sir," said Mr. Sharp. "On the contrary
+our instructions are positive to push the case."
+
+"But what can I do?" asked Robert. "I have already sent every dollar I
+had, and until I earn more I can pay no more."
+
+"The case is a peculiar one, sir. It has the appearance of a fraudulent
+debt and an attempt to run away from it. I must do my duty by my client,
+sir; and so this gentleman, who is a sheriff's officer, has an order for
+your arrest, which I must ask him to serve if you do not pay the debt to
+day."
+
+[Illustration: "LET HIM SERVE IT AT ONCE, THEN."]
+
+"Let him serve it at once, then," said Robert. "I can not pay now."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Takes a Lesson in the Law._
+
+
+As Robert was unable to give bail without calling upon his friend
+Dudley, which he determined not to do in any case, he was taken to the
+jail and locked up. Upon his arrival there he employed a messenger to
+carry a note to a young lawyer with whom he happened to be slightly
+acquainted, asking him to come to the jail at once. When he arrived
+Robert said to him:
+
+"Let me tell you in the outset, Mr. Dyker, that I have no money and no
+friends; wherefore if you allow me to consult you at all, it must be
+with the understanding that I cannot possibly pay you for your services
+until I can make the money. If you are willing to trust me to that
+extent, we can proceed to business."
+
+"You are very honorable, sir, to inform me, beforehand, of this fact.
+Pray go on. I will do what I can for you."
+
+"In the first place, then," said Robert, "I am a little puzzled to know
+how or why I am locked up. You have the papers, will you tell me how it
+is?"
+
+"O it's plain enough. You are held under an order of arrest."
+
+"But I don't understand. I thought imprisonment for debt was a thing of
+the past, in this country at least, and my only offense is indebtedness.
+Is it possible that men may still be imprisoned for debt in America?"
+
+"Well, that is about it," said the lawyer. "We have abolished the name
+but retain the thing in a slightly modified form--in New York at least.
+Theoretically you are not imprisoned, but merely held to answer. The
+plaintiffs have made out a case of fraud and non-residence, and so they
+had plain sailing."
+
+"But I always understood that our constitution or our law or something
+else secured every man against imprisonment except by due process of
+law, and gave to every accused person the right to be confronted with
+his accusers, to cross-examine witnesses, and to have his guilt or
+innocence passed upon by a jury of his countrymen."
+
+"That is the theory; but there are some classes of cases which are
+practically exceptions, and yours is one of them."
+
+"Then," said Robert, "it is true, is it, that an American may be
+arrested and sent to jail without trial, upon the mere strength of
+affidavits made by lawyers who know nothing of the facts except what
+they have heard from distant, irresponsible, and personally interested
+clients--affidavits upon information, I believe you call them?"
+
+"Well, you put it a little strongly, perhaps, but those are the facts in
+New York. Respectable lawyers, however, are careful to satisfy
+themselves of the facts before proceeding at all in such cases; and so
+the law, which is a very convenient one, rarely ever works injustice, I
+think--not once in twenty times, I should say."
+
+"But," said Robert, "the personal liberty of every non-resident and some
+resident debtors is, or in some cases may be, dependent solely upon the
+character of attorneys, as I understand you."
+
+"In some cases, yes. But pardon me. Had we not better come to the matter
+in hand?"
+
+"As we are not a legislature perhaps it would be better," said Robert.
+He then proceeded to relate the facts of the case, beginning with his
+drawing of the draft in good faith, its protest, and his consequent
+perplexity.
+
+"I did not 'abscond' at all," he continued, "but came away to see if I
+could save something from the wreck of the bank, and to seek work. In
+leaving, I promised to pay the debt on or before the fifteenth of last
+month, feeling certain that I could do so. I failed to do it,
+through----never mind, I failed to do it, but I have been trying hard
+ever since to get the money and discharge the obligation. I yesterday
+remitted a hundred dollars, and should have sent the rest as fast as I
+could make it. These are the facts. Now how am I to get out of here?"
+
+"You have nobody to go your bail?"
+
+"Nobody."
+
+"And no money?"
+
+"None. I sold my watch in order to get money on which to live while I
+was looking for work."
+
+"You did have money enough to your credit in that bank to have made your
+draft good if the bank hadn't suspended?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You can swear to that?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then I think we can manage this matter without much difficulty. We can
+admit the facts but deny the fraudulent intent, in affidavits of our
+own, and get discharged on that ground. I think we can easily overthrow
+the theory of fraud by showing that you actually had the money in bank
+and swearing that you drew against it in good faith."
+
+"Pardon me; but in doing that I should be bound, should I not, in honor
+if not in law, to state all the facts of the case in my affidavit? The
+theory of the proceeding is that I am putting the court in possession of
+all the facts and withholding nothing, is it not?"
+
+"Well--yes. I suppose it is."
+
+"Then let us abandon that plan forthwith."
+
+"But my dear sir----"
+
+"Pray don't argue the point. My mind is fully made up. Is there no other
+mode of securing my release?"
+
+"Yes; you might schedule out under article 5 of the Non-Imprisonment
+Act, I think."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"It is a sort of insolvency or bankruptcy proceeding, by which you come
+into court--any court of record--and offer to give up everything you
+have to your creditors, giving a sworn catalogue of all your debts and
+all your property, and praying release on the ground that you are
+unable to do more."
+
+"Well, as I have literally nothing in the way of property just now, that
+mode of procedure seems to fit my case precisely," said Robert, whose
+courage and good humor and indomitable cheerfulness stood him in good
+stead in this time of very sore trial. The world looked gloomy enough to
+him then in whatever way he chose to look at it, but the instinct of
+fight was large within him, and in the absence of other joys he felt a
+savage pleasure in knowing that his life henceforth must be a constant
+struggle against fearful odds--odds of prejudice as well as of poverty;
+for who could now take him by the hand and say to others this is my
+friend?
+
+"It's too late to accomplish anything to-day, Mr. Pagebrook," said the
+lawyer, looking at his watch; "but I will be here by ten o'clock
+to-morrow morning, and we will then go to work for your deliverance,
+which we can effect, I think, pretty quick. Good evening, sir."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Cuts himself loose from the Past and Plans a Future._
+
+
+When the lawyer had gone Robert sat down to deliberate upon the
+situation and to decide what was to be done in matters aside from the
+question of his release. He had that morning received Col. Barksdale's
+letter and Miss Sudie's. These must be answered at once, and he was not
+quite certain how he should answer them. After turning the matter over
+he determined upon his course and, according to his custom, having
+determined what to do he at once set about doing it. Having brought a
+supply of paper and envelopes from his room he had only to borrow pen
+and ink from the attendant.
+
+His first letter was addressed to the president of the college from
+which he had received his appointment as professor, and it consisted of
+a simple resignation, with no explanation except that contained in the
+sentence:
+
+"I can ill afford to surrender the position or the salary, but there are
+painful circumstances surrounding me, which compel me to this course.
+Pray excuse me from a fuller statement of the case."
+
+To Col. Barksdale he wrote:
+
+"Your letter surprises me only in its kindness and gentleness of tone.
+Under the circumstances I could have forgiven a good deal of harshness.
+For your forbearance, however, you have my hearty thanks. And now as to
+the subject matter of your note: I am sorry to say I can offer neither
+denial nor satisfactory explanation of the facts alleged against me. I
+must bear the blame that attaches to what I have done, and bearing that
+blame I know my duty to you and your family. I shall write by this mail
+to Miss Barksdale volunteering a release, which otherwise you would have
+a right to demand of me."
+
+Sealing this and directing it, Robert came to the hardest task of
+all--the writing of a letter to Cousin Sudie.
+
+"I hardly know how to write to you," he wrote. "Your generous faith in
+me in spite of everything is more than I had any right to expect, and
+more, I think, than you have any right, in justice to yourself, to give
+me. I thank you for it right heartily, but I feel that I must not accept
+it. When you listened to my words of love and gave them a place in your
+heart, I was a gentleman without reproach. Now a stain is upon my name,
+which I can never remove. The man to whom you promised your hand was not
+the absconding debtor who writes you this from a jail. I send this
+letter, therefore, to offer you a release from your engagement with me,
+if indeed any release be necessary. You cannot afford to know me or even
+to remember me hereafter. Forget me, then, or, if you cannot wholly
+forget, remember me only as an adventurer, who for a paltry sum sold his
+good name.
+
+"Good-by. I wish you well with all my heart."
+
+As he sealed these letters Robert felt that his hopes for the future
+were sealed up with them, and that the post which should bear them away
+would carry with it the better part of his life. And yet he did not
+wholly surrender himself to despair, as a weaker man might have done.
+The old life was gone from him forever. The only people whom he had
+known as in any sense his own would grasp his hand no more, and if they
+ever thought of him again it would be only to regret that they had known
+him at all. All this he felt keenly, but it did not follow that he
+should abandon himself, as a consequence. He was still a young man, and
+there was time enough for him to make a new life for himself--to find
+new friends and to do some worthy work in the world; and to the planning
+of this new life he at once addressed himself.
+
+He would teach no longer, and now that he had cut himself loose from
+that profession there was opportunity to do something at the business
+which he had found so agreeable of late. He would devote himself
+hereafter wholly to writing, and at the first opportunity he would
+become a regular member of the staff of some paper. Even if his earnings
+with his pen should prove small, what did that matter? He could never
+think of marrying now, and a very little would suffice to supply all his
+wants, his habits of life being simple and regular. It stung him when he
+remembered that there was a stain upon his name which could never be
+removed; but that, he knew, he must bear, and so he resolved to bear it
+bravely, as it becomes a man to bear all his burdens.
+
+With thoughts like these the stalwart young fellow sank to sleep on the
+bed assigned him in the jail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+_In which Miss Sudie Acts very Unreasonably._
+
+
+The men who make up mails and handle great bags full of letters every
+day of their lives grow accustomed to the business, I suppose, and learn
+after awhile to regard the bags and their contents merely as so many
+pounds of "mail matter." Otherwise they would soon become unfit for
+their duties. If they could weigh those bags with other than material
+scales--if they could know how many human hopes and fears; how much of
+human purpose and human despair; how many joys and how much of
+wretchedness those bags contain; if they could hear the moans that utter
+themselves inside the canvas; if they could know the varying purposes
+with which all those letters have been written, and the various effects
+they are destined to produce; if our mail carriers could know and feel
+all these things, or the half of them, we should shortly have no mail
+carriers at all. But fortunately there are prosaic souls enough in the
+world to make all necessary mail agents and postmasters, and undertakers
+and grave-diggers out of.
+
+In the small mail bag thrown off at the Court House one December
+morning, there was one little package of New York letters--three
+letters in all, but on those three letters hung the happiness of several
+human lives. Of one of them we shall learn nothing for the present. The
+other two, from Robert Pagebrook to his uncle and Miss Barksdale, we
+have already been permitted to read. When these were received at
+Shirley, Miss Sudie took hers to her own room and read it there, after
+which she sat down and answered it. Col. Barksdale read his with no
+surprise, as he had not been able to imagine any possible explanation of
+Robert's conduct; and now that that gentleman frankly confessed that
+there was none, he accepted the confession as a bit of evidence in the
+case, for which he had waited merely as a matter of form. It was his
+duty now to talk again with his niece, but he was very tender always in
+his dealings with her, and felt an especial tenderness now that she must
+be suffering sorely. He quietly inquired where she was, and learning
+that she was in her own room, he refrained from summoning her himself,
+and gave her maid particular instructions to allow no one else to
+intrude upon her privacy upon any pretense whatsoever.
+
+"Lucy," he said, to the colored woman, "your Miss Sudie wishes to be
+alone for awhile. Sit down in the passage near her door, but don't
+knock, and don't allow any one else to knock. When she wishes to see any
+one she will open the door herself, and until then I do not want her
+disturbed."
+
+Then going into the dining-room, where Dick was polishing the mahogany
+with a large piece of cork, he said:
+
+"Dick, go out to the office and ask your Mas' Billy if he will be good
+enough to come to me in the library. I want to talk with him."
+
+When Billy came in his father showed him Robert's letter.
+
+"The thing looks very ugly," said the younger gentleman.
+
+"Very ugly, indeed," said his father; "but the confounded rascal holds
+up his head under it all, and acts as honorably in Sudie's case as if he
+had never acted otherwise than as a gentleman should. He is a puzzle to
+me. But, of course, this must end the matter. We can have nothing
+whatever to do with him hereafter."
+
+"But how is it, father, that they have managed to imprison him?"
+
+"I presume they have secured an order of arrest under that New York
+statute which seems to have been devised as a means of securing to
+creditors all the advantages of imprisonment for debt without shocking
+the better sense of the community, which is clearly against such
+imprisonment. The majority of people rarely ever pay any attention to
+the fact so long as they are spared the name of odious things. No
+debtors' prison would be allowed to stand in the United States, of
+course, but the common jails answer all purposes when a way for getting
+debtors locked up in them has been devised."
+
+"But how does it happen, father," asked Mr. Billy, "that only New York
+has such a statute?"
+
+"Well, in New York the commercial interest overrides every other, and
+commercial men naturally attach undue importance to the collection of
+debts, and look with favor upon everything which tends to facilitate
+it. These things always reflect the feeling rather than the opinion of a
+community. In new countries, where horses are of more importance than
+anything else, horse-stealing is pretty sure to be punished with death,
+either by law or by the mob, which is only public sentiment embodied.
+Here in Virginia you know how impossible it is to get anything like an
+effective statute for the suppression of dueling, simply because the
+ultimate public sentiment practically approves of personal warfare. But,
+I confess, I did not know that the New York statute could be stretched
+to cover a case like Robert's. As I understand it, there must be some
+evidence of fraud in the inception of the transaction."
+
+"They proceed upon affidavits, I believe," said Billy, "and when that is
+done it isn't hard to make out a case, if the attorney is unscrupulous
+enough."
+
+"That's true. But isn't it curious that Edwin should have proceeded so
+promptly to harsh measures? He is so mild of temper that this surprises
+me."
+
+"Cousin Edwin doesn't always act out his own character, you know,
+father. His wife is the stronger willed of the two."
+
+"True. I hadn't thought of that. However, it serves the young rascal
+right."
+
+At this point of the conversation Cousin Sudie's knock was heard at the
+inner door, and Col. Barksdale opening the outer one said:
+
+"You'd better go out this door, William. It would embarrass Sue to find
+you here just now."
+
+"Come in my daughter," he said, admitting Miss Sudie. "Sit down. I am
+greatly pained, on his account as well as yours, to find that Robert has
+no explanation to offer. But, of course, this ends it all, and you must
+take a little trip somewhere, my dear, until you forget all about it.
+Where shall we go?"
+
+"I do not care to go anywhere, Uncle Carter," replied the little maiden,
+without the faintest echo of a sob in her voice. "I am sorry for poor
+Robert, but not because I think him guilty of any dishonorable action,
+for indeed I do not."
+
+"But, my dear, it will never do----"
+
+"Pray hear me out, Uncle Carter, and then I will listen to anything you
+have to say. I love you as a father, as you know perfectly well. Indeed
+I have never known you as anything else. I have always obeyed you
+unquestioningly, and I shall not begin to disobey you now. I shall do
+precisely what you tell me to do, _so long as I remain in your house_."
+
+"What do you mean by that, daughter?" asked her uncle, startled by the
+singular emphasis which Miss Sudie gave to the last clause of the
+sentence.
+
+"Merely this, Uncle Carter. I cannot consent to do that which my
+conscience teaches me is a crime, even at your command; but while I
+remain at Shirley as a daughter of the house I must obey as a daughter.
+If you command me to do anything which I cannot do without sinning
+against my conscience, then I must not obey you, and when I can't obey
+you I must cease to be your daughter. I shall conceal nothing from you,
+Uncle Carter; you know that, and I beg of you don't command me to do
+the things which I must not do. I love you and it would kill me--no, it
+would not do that, but it would pain me more than I can possibly say, to
+leave Shirley."
+
+Col. Barksdale leaned his head sorrowfully upon his hand. He loved this
+girl and held her as his own. Moreover, he had solemnly promised his
+dying brother to care for her always as a father cares for his children,
+and an oath could not have been more sacred in his eyes than this
+promise was. Without raising his head he asked:
+
+"You mean, Sudie, that you will not accept Robert's release?"
+
+"Yes, uncle, that is what I mean." This was sorrowfully and gently said,
+but firmly too.
+
+"He has offered to release you; has he not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And in so offering, did he express or hint a wish that you should not
+accept his release?"
+
+"No. On the contrary he assumed that I would accept it, and that I must
+do so in justice to myself. Here is his letter. Read it if you please."
+
+Col. Barksdale read the letter, with which the reader is already
+familiar, and, handing it back, said:
+
+"A very proper and manly letter."
+
+"Because it came from a very proper and manly man," said Miss Sudie.
+
+"You don't believe he has been guilty of the dishonorable acts laid to
+his charge, then?"
+
+"Of the acts, yes. Of the dishonor, no," said the girl.
+
+"On what ground do you base your persistent good opinion of him?"
+
+"On my persistent faith in him."
+
+"Your faith is very unreasonable, my dear."
+
+"Perhaps so, but it exists nevertheless."
+
+"Have you answered his letter?"
+
+"Yes, sir; and I have brought my answer for you to read, if you care to
+do so," she said, taking her letter out of her desk, which lay in her
+lap, and giving it to her uncle, who read as follows:
+
+    "MY DEAR ROBERT:--I am not in the least surprised by your letter. I
+    knew you would offer to release me from my engagement, because I
+    knew you were a man of honor. I have never for a moment doubted
+    that, and I do not doubt it now. Your character weighs more with me
+    than any mere facts can. I know you are an honorable man, and
+    knowing that I shall not let other people's doubts upon the subject
+    govern my action. When I 'listened to your words of love, and gave
+    them a place in my heart,' you were, as you say, 'a gentleman
+    without reproach'; and the reproach which lies upon you now does not
+    make you less a gentleman. It is an unjust reproach, and your
+    manliness in bearing it and offering to accept its consequences,
+    only serves to mark you still more distinctly as a gentleman. Shall
+    I be less honorable, less fearlessly true than you? When I gave you
+    my heart and promised you my hand, you had friends in abundance. Now
+    that you have none, I have no idea of withdrawing either the gift or
+    the promise.
+
+    "You say you can never clear your name of the stain which is upon
+    it now. For that I am heartily sorry, for your sake, but as I know
+    that the stain does not rightly belong there it becomes my duty and
+    my pleasure to bear it with you. I shall retain my faith in you and
+    my love for you, and I shall profess them too on all proper
+    occasions, and when you claim me as your wife I shall hold up Mrs.
+    Robert Pagebrook's head as proudly as I now hold Susan Barksdale's.
+
+    "Under other circumstances I should have thought it unmaidenly to
+    write in this way, but there must be no doubt of my meaning now. If
+    you ever ask a release from your promise, with or without reason, I
+    trust you know me well enough to know that it will be granted--but
+    from my promise I shall ask none. Another reason for the frankness
+    of this letter is that I want you, in your trouble, to know how
+    implicitly I trust your honor; and I should certainly never trust
+    such a letter in any but the cleanest of hands.
+
+    "Uncle Carter will see this before it goes, and he will know, as it
+    is right that he should, that I have not availed myself of your
+    proffered release...."
+
+The omitted sentences with which the letter closed are not for our eyes.
+Even Colonel Barksdale refused to read them, feeling that they were
+sacred, and that the permission given him to read the letter extended no
+further than the end of the sentence last set down in the extract above
+given.
+
+Returning the sheet he said: "I suppose you have written this after
+giving the matter full consideration, daughter?"
+
+"I never act without knowing what I am doing, Uncle Carter."
+
+"Well, my child, I think you are wrong, but I shall not ask you to do
+anything which your conscience condemns. I shall not ask you to withhold
+your letter, or to alter it, but I would prefer that you hold it until
+to-morrow, so that you may be quite sure you want to send it as it is.
+Will you mind doing that?"
+
+"No, Uncle Carter. I will keep it till to-morrow, if you wish, but I
+shall not change my mind concerning it. You are very good to me. Thank
+you;" and kissing his forehead, she left him, not to return to her room
+as a more sentimental woman would have done, but to go about her daily
+duties, with a sober face, it is true, but with all her accustomed
+regularity and attention to business.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+_In which Miss Sudie Adopts the Socratic Method._
+
+
+When Miss Sudie left him Col. Barksdale again sent for his son and told
+him of that young woman's unreasonable determination.
+
+"I expected that, father, and am not at all surprised," said the young
+man.
+
+"Why, my son? Had you talked the matter over with her?"
+
+"No. But I know Sudie too well to expect her to give up her faith in Bob
+while he is under a cloud and in trouble too. She has a mighty good head
+on her shoulders; but what's a woman's head worth when her heart pulls
+the other way? She overrides her own reason as coolly as if it were
+worth just nothing at all, and puts everybody else's out of the way with
+the utmost indifference. I know her of old. She used to take my part
+that way whenever I got into a boyish scrape, and before she had done
+with it she always convinced me, along with everybody else, that I had
+done nothing to be ashamed of. The fact is, father, I like that in
+Sudie. She's the truest little woman I ever saw, and she sticks to her
+friends like mutton gravy to the roof of your mouth," said Billy,
+unable, even at such a time as this, to restrain his passion for strange
+metaphors.
+
+"The trait is a noble one, certainly," said the old gentleman; "but for
+that very reason, if for no other, we must do what we can to keep her
+from sacrificing herself to a noble faith in an unworthy man. Don't you
+think so?"
+
+"Without doubt. But what can we do? You say you do not feel free to
+control her."
+
+"We can at least do our duty. I have talked with her, and now I want you
+to do the same. She will not shun the conversation, I think, for she is
+a brave girl."
+
+"I will see what I can do, father," said the young man. "Possibly I may
+persuade her to let the matter rest where it is, for the present at
+least, and even that will be something gained."
+
+Col. Barksdale was right in thinking that Miss Sudie would not seek to
+avoid a conversation with Billy. On the contrary she wished especially
+to say something to this young gentleman, and for that very purpose she
+sought him in the office. He and she had been brought up as brother and
+sister, and there was no feeling of restraint between them now that they
+were grown man and woman.
+
+"Cousin Billy," she said, sitting down near him, "I want to talk with
+you about Robert. I want to remind you, if you will let me, of your duty
+to him."
+
+"What do you conceive my duty to be in the case, Sudie?" asked Billy.
+
+"To defend him," said Miss Sudie.
+
+"But how can I do that, Sudie, in face of the facts?"
+
+"You believe then that Robert Pagebrook, whom you know thoroughly, has
+done the dishonorable things laid to his charge?"
+
+"Well," said Billy, feeling himself hardly prepared for this kind of
+attack, "I confess I should never have thought him capable of doing such
+things."
+
+"Why would you never have thought him capable of doing them, Cousin
+Billy?"
+
+"O well, because he always seemed to be such an honorable fellow," said
+Billy.
+
+"You did believe him honorable, then?" asked this young female Socrates.
+
+"Certainly; you know that Sudie."
+
+"On what did you base that belief, Cousin Billy?"
+
+"Why, on his way of doing things, on my knowledge of him, of course;"
+replied Billy.
+
+"Well, then, is that knowledge of him of no value now?" asked Sudie.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I mean does your knowledge of Robert weigh nothing now? Are you ready
+to believe on imperfect evidence, that Robert Pagebrook, who you know
+was an honorable man, is not now an honorable man? Doesn't his character
+weigh anything with you? Do you believe his character has changed, or do
+you think it possible that he simulated that character and did it so
+perfectly as to deceive us all? Doesn't it seem more probable that there
+is some mistake about this business? In short, how can you believe
+Robert guilty of a thing which you know very well he wouldn't do for
+his head? If you 'wouldn't have believed it,' why do you believe it?"
+
+Mr. Billy was stunned. He had been prepared for tears. He had expected
+to find in Sudie an unreasoning faith. He had looked for an obstinate
+determination on her part to adhere to her purpose. But for this kind of
+illogical logic he had made no preparation whatever. It had never
+entered his head that Miss Sudie would seriously undertake to argue the
+matter. The evidence against Robert he had accepted as unquestionable,
+and he had not expected Miss Sudie to question it in this way.
+
+"But, Cousin Sudie, you overlook the fact that Robert has confessed the
+very thing which you say is unlikely."
+
+"No; he has not confessed anything of the sort. Indeed he seems to have
+carefully avoided doing so. In his letter to Uncle Carter he merely
+says, 'I can offer neither denial nor explanation of the facts alleged
+against me.' To me he only says, 'a stain is upon my name.' He nowhere
+says, 'I am guilty.'"
+
+"But, Sudie," said Billy, "if he a'n't guilty, why can't he offer either
+'denial or explanation'?"
+
+"That I do not know; but I don't find it half as hard to believe that
+there may be good reasons for that, as to believe that an honorable
+man--a man whom we both know to be an honorable one--has done a
+dishonorable thing."
+
+"But, Sudie, why didn't Bob borrow the money of father or of me, if he
+honestly couldn't pay? He knew we would gladly lend it to him."
+
+"I'm glad you mentioned that. If Robert had wanted to swindle anybody,
+how much easier it would have been for him to write to you or Uncle
+Carter, saying he couldn't pay and asking you to take up his protested
+draft for him. He knew you would have done it, and he could then have
+accomplished his purpose without any exposure. Almost any excuse would
+have satisfied you or Uncle Carter, and so the thing would have gone on
+for years. Wouldn't he have done exactly that, Cousin Billy, if he had
+wanted to swindle anybody? Men don't often covet a bad name for its own
+sake."
+
+"Clearly, Sudie, I am getting the worst of this argument. You are a
+better sophist than I ever gave you credit for being. But it's hard to
+believe that black is white. I'll tell you what I'll do, though, Sudie.
+I'll do my very best to believe that there is some sort of faint
+possibility that facts a'n't facts, and hold myself, as nearly as I can,
+in readiness to believe that something may turn up in Bob's favor. If
+anything were to turn up I'd be as glad of it as anybody."
+
+"But I'm not satisfied with that, Cousin Billy."
+
+"What more do you ask, Sudie?"
+
+"That you shall hold yourself in readiness to help turn something up
+whenever an opportunity offers. Keep a sharp lookout for things which
+may possibly have a bearing upon this matter, and follow up any clue you
+may get. Won't you do that for my sake, Cousin Billy?"
+
+"I'd do anything for your sake, Sudie, and I'd give a hundred dollars
+for your faith."
+
+And so ended the conversation. Mr. Billy, it must be confessed, had
+done little toward the accomplishment of the task he had set himself.
+But as he himself put it: "What on earth was a fellow to do with a faith
+which made incontestable truths out of impossibilities, and scattered
+facts before it like a flock of partridges?" Mr. Billy fully appreciated
+the unreasonableness of Miss Sudie's logic, and yet, in spite of all, he
+could not help entertaining a sort of half hope that something would
+occur to vindicate Robert--a hope born of nothing more substantial than
+Miss Sudie's enthusiastic belief in her lover.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+_Mr. Pagebrook Accepts an Invitation to Lunch and another Invitation._
+
+
+On the morning after Robert's incarceration, his attorney came at the
+appointed hour for the purpose of preparing the papers on which
+application was to be made for his discharge.
+
+"I have the affidavits all ready, I believe, Mr. Pagebrook, and we have
+only to make a complete list of your property."
+
+"That will be easily done, sir," said Robert, with a feeling of grim
+amusement; "as I have literally nothing except my trunk and its
+contents."
+
+"You have your claim on that bank for money deposited. I suppose that
+must be included, though it is only a _chose_ in action."
+
+"O put it in, by all means," said Robert. "I do not wish to misrepresent
+anything or to withhold anything. I only wish the _chose_ in action, as
+you call it, were of sufficient value to discharge the debt. I should
+then quit here free from all indebtedness, except to you for your fee;
+and should not have this thing to pay.'
+
+"Your discharge, I think, will free you, in law, from----"
+
+"But it will not free me in honor sir. It will give me time, however;
+and the very first use I shall make of that time will be to earn the
+money with which to pay off this, my only debt. I should never ask a
+discharge at all if the asking supposed any purpose on my part to avoid
+the payment of the debt. Pardon me; this talk must sound odd to you,
+coming from a man in my present position. I forgot that I am an
+absconding debtor. You will think my talk a cheap kind of honesty,
+costing nothing."
+
+"No, Pagebrook--if you will allow me to drop the 'Mister'--I should
+trust you in any transaction, though I have not known you a week. I
+don't believe you are an absconding debtor, and I'm not going to believe
+it on the strength of any oaths Messrs. Steel, Flint & Sharp may make."
+As he said this the young lawyer took Robert's hand, and Robert found
+himself wholly unable to utter a word by way of reply. He did not want
+to shed tears in the presence of his jail attendants, but the lawyer saw
+them standing in his eyes, and prevented any effort at replying by
+turning at once to the matter in hand.
+
+"Come, Pagebrook," he said, "this isn't business. Let me see; what bank
+was it that you deposited with?"
+
+"The Essex," said Robert.
+
+"The Essex!" said the lawyer. "What was that I saw in the Tribune this
+morning about that bank? I think it was the Essex. Let me see;" running
+his eye over the columns of the newspaper, which he had taken from his
+pocket.
+
+"Ah! here it is. By George! My dear Pagebrook, I congratulate you. Your
+bank has resumed. See, here is the item:
+
+"'PHILADELPHIA, DEC. 3D.--The Essex Bank, of this city, which suspended
+payment some weeks since, will resume business to-morrow. Its affairs
+were found to be in a very favorable condition, and at a meeting of the
+stockholders, held to-day, the deficit in its assets was covered, and
+its capital made good by subscription. It is not thought that any run
+will be made upon it, but ample preparations have been made to meet such
+a contingency.'
+
+"Again I congratulate you, right heartily."
+
+"This means then, that my sixteen hundred dollars--that was the total
+amount of my deposit--is intact, and that I may check against it as soon
+as I choose, does it?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then let us suspend our preparations for securing my release. I will
+pay out of this instead of begging out. I will draw at once for enough
+to cover this debt and your fees, and ask you to put the draft into bank
+for collection. We will have returns by the day after to-morrow,
+doubtless, and I shall then go out of here with my head up."
+
+"We'll end this business sooner than that, Pagebrook," said the lawyer.
+"Draw your draft, I'll indorse it, take it to the bank where I deposit,
+get it cashed at once, and have you out of here in time for a two
+o'clock lunch. You'll lunch with me, of course."
+
+"Pardon me, but you have no means of knowing that I have any money in
+that bank," said Robert.
+
+"Yes, indeed I have."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Your word. I told you I would trust you."
+
+Robert looked at the man a moment, and then taking his hand, said:
+
+"I accept your confidence frankly. Thank you. Draw the draft, please,
+and I will sign it."
+
+The draft was soon drawn, and at two o'clock that day--just twenty-four
+hours after his arrest--Robert sat down to lunch with his friend, in a
+down-town eating-house.
+
+While the two gentlemen were engaged with their lunch, Robert's friend
+Dudley, who had been eating a chop at the farther end of the room,
+espied his acquaintance, and approaching him said:
+
+"How are you, Pagebrook? Are you specially engaged for this afternoon?"
+
+"No, I believe not," said Robert. "I have nothing to do except to finish
+an article which I want to offer you to-morrow, and I can do that
+to-night."
+
+"Suppose you come up to the office, then, after you finish your lunch. I
+want to talk with you."
+
+"I will be there within half an hour, if that will suit you," said
+Robert.
+
+"Very well; I'll expect you."
+
+Accordingly, Robert bade his friend adieu after lunch, and went
+immediately to the editor's room.
+
+Mr. Dudley closed the door, first saying to his messenger, who sat in
+the anteroom;
+
+"I shall be busy for some time, Eddie, and can't see anybody. If any
+one calls, tell him I am closeted with a gentleman on important business
+and can see nobody. Now, Pagebrook," he resumed, taking his seat, "you
+ought to quit teaching."
+
+"Why?" asked Robert.
+
+"Well, you're a born writer certainly, and if I am not greatly mistaken,
+a born journalist too. You have a knack of knowing just what points
+people want to hear about. I've been struck with that in every article
+you have written for me, and especially in this last one. Do you know
+I've rejected no less than a dozen well-written articles on that very
+subject, just because they treated every phase of it except the right
+one, and didn't come within a mile of that. Now you've hit it exactly,
+as you always do. You've got hold of precisely the things that nobody
+knows anything about and everybody wants to know all about, and that's
+journalism."
+
+"Thank you," said Robert. "You really think, then, that I might make
+myself a successful journalist if I were to try?"
+
+"I know you would. You have precisely the right sort of ideas. You
+discriminate between the things that are wanted and the things that are
+not. I have long since discovered that this thing that men call writing
+ability and journalistic ability isn't like anything else. It crops out
+where you would never look for it, and where you think it ought to be it
+isn't. You can't coax or nurse it into existence to save your life. If a
+man has it he has it, and if he hasn't it he hasn't it, and nobody can
+give it to him. It isn't contagious, and I honestly believe it isn't
+acquirable. And that's why I'm certain of you. You've shown that you
+have it, and one showing is as good as a hundred."
+
+"I am greatly pleased," said Robert, "to know that you think so well of
+me in this respect, for I have resigned my professorship and determined
+to make my way, to the best of my ability, as a journalist, hereafter?"
+
+"You have?"
+
+"Yes; I sent my letter of resignation yesterday."
+
+"I'm heartily glad of it, old fellow, and selfishly glad, too, for it
+was to persuade you to do that that I sat down to talk to you. You see
+my health is not very good lately; the fact is I have been using the
+spur too much, and am pretty well run down with overwork. The publishers
+have been urging me to get an assistant, and the trouble is to get one
+who can really relieve me of a share of the work. I can get plenty of
+people to undertake it, but I have to go over their work to be sure of
+it, and it's easier to do it myself from the first. Now you are just the
+man I want, if you can stand the salary. The publishers will let me pay
+forty dollars a week. You can make more than that from the outside, I
+suppose, but it's better to be in a regular situation, I think. How
+would you like to try the thing?"
+
+"Nothing could be more to my taste. I think I should like this better
+than daily paper work, and besides it gives one a better opportunity for
+growth. But before we talk any more about it I feel myself in honor
+bound to tell you what has happened to me lately. If you care then to
+repeat your offer, I shall gladly accept it, but if you feel the
+slightest hesitation about it, I shall not blame you for not renewing
+it."
+
+And Robert told him everything, but Dudley declined to believe that
+there had been any just cause for the arrest, or that Robert had in any
+way violated the strictest canons of honor.
+
+This young man seemed, indeed, to be perfect master of the art of making
+people believe in him in spite of the most damaging facts. Miss Sudie's
+faith in him never wavered for an instant. Even Billy had to keep a
+synopsis of the evidence against his cousin constantly in mind to keep
+himself from "believing that he couldn't see through glass," as he
+phrased it. The New York lawyer, summoned to get the young man out of
+jail, backed his faith in him, as we have seen, by indorsing his draft
+for several hundred dollars; and now Dudley, after hearing a plain
+statement of the facts from Robert's own lips, dismissed them as of no
+consequence, and set up his own unreasonable faith as a complete answer
+to them. He renewed his offer, and Robert accepted it, becoming office
+editor of the weekly paper for which he had recently been writing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+_Major Pagebrook asserts himself._
+
+
+It now becomes necessary to a proper understanding of this history that
+we shall go back a day or two, to the day, in fact, on which Robert's
+letters were received at Shirley. I said there were three New York
+letters in the mail-bag thrown off at the Court House that morning. The
+third letter there referred to was from the law firm of Steel, Flint &
+Sharp. It was addressed to Edwin Pagebrook, Esq., and quite by accident
+it fell into that gentleman's hands. I say by accident, because Cousin
+Sarah Ann had taken unusual precautions to prevent precisely this
+result. After writing to the lawyers, it occurred to that estimable lady
+that a reply would come in due time, and that as she had taken the
+liberty of signing her husband's name to her letter, the reply would be
+addressed to him rather than to her, and she greatly feared that he
+would have an opportunity to read it. She particularly wished that this
+should not happen. She knew her mild-mannered and long-suffering husband
+thoroughly, and, while she felt free to torment him in various ways, she
+had learned, from one or two bits of experience, that it was not the
+part of wisdom to tax his endurance too far. Accordingly she took pains
+to prevent him from visiting the Court House while she was expecting the
+letter. She laid various plans for the purpose of keeping him occupied
+on the plantation every day, and took care to secure the first look into
+the family postbag whenever the servant returned with it. On the morning
+in question, however, as Maj. Pagebrook was riding over his plantation,
+inspecting work, he met a neighbor who was going to the Court House, and
+having some small matters to attend to there he determined to join the
+neighbor in his ride. Upon his arrival he called for his letters, and so
+it came about that the note in which Messrs. Steel, Flint & Sharp,
+"begged to inform him" of Robert's arrest in accordance with his
+instructions, fell into his hands. At first he was puzzled, and thought
+there must have been some mistake, but after awhile a glimmering of the
+truth dawned upon him, and in his smothered way he was exceedingly
+angry. He had condemned Robert's misconduct as severely as anybody, but
+had never dreamed of proceeding to harsh measures in the matter.
+Besides, it was only the day before that Robert's remittance of one
+hundred dollars had come to him, and, in acknowledging its receipt, he
+had partially satisfied his resentment by telling his cousin "what he
+thought of him," and to learn now that the young man was in jail for the
+fault, and apparently at his behest, was sorely displeasing to him. And
+worse than all, his wife had taken an unwarrantable liberty in the
+affair, and this he determined to resent. He mounted his horse,
+therefore, and was on the point of starting homeward when Dr. Harrison
+accosted him.
+
+"Good morning, Maj. Pagebrook. May I speak to you a moment?"
+
+"Good morning, Charles."
+
+"Has there been any administrator appointed for Ewing's estate?"
+
+"No, not yet. I reckon I must take out papers next court day, as he was
+of age when he died. It's only a matter of form, I reckon, as there are
+no debts."
+
+"Well, my only reason for asking is I hold Ewing's note for two hundred
+and twenty-five dollars. I'm in no hurry, only I wanted to act regularly
+and get it in shape by presenting it."
+
+"You have Ewing's note? Why, what is it for?" asked Major Pagebrook in
+astonishment.
+
+"Borrowed money," answered the doctor.
+
+"Borrowed money? But how did he come to borrow it?"
+
+"Well, the fact is Ewing got to playing bluff with Foggy one day just
+before he got sick, and Foggy fleeced him pretty badly, and I lent him
+the money to pay out with. He didn't want to owe it to Foggy, you know."
+
+"Have you the note with you?" asked Maj. Pagebrook.
+
+"No. It's in my office; but I can get it if you'd like to look at it."
+
+"No; it's no matter, if you can tell me the date."
+
+"It bears date November 19th, I think."
+
+"Just one day after he came of age," said Maj. Pagebrook. "Well, I'll
+see about it, Charles," and with this the two gentlemen separated.
+
+Major Pagebrook rode homeward, meditating upon the occurrences of the
+morning. He had determined to manage his own business hereafter without
+tolerating improper interference upon the part of his wife, and he was
+in position to do this, too, except with regard to the home plantation,
+which, as Ewing had informed Robert, was held in Cousin Sarah Ann's
+name. Major Pagebrook was a quiet man and a long-suffering one. He liked
+nothing so much as peace, and to keep the peace he had always yielded to
+the more aggressive nature of his wife. But he felt now that the time
+had come for him to assert his supremacy in business matters, and he
+determined to assert it very quietly but very positively. One point was
+as good as another, he thought, for the purpose, and this
+newly-discovered debt of Ewing's gave him an excellent occasion for the
+self-assertion upon which he had resolved. Several times of late he had
+mildly suggested to Cousin Sarah Ann the propriety of putting Ewing's
+papers into Billy Barksdale's hands for examination, so that the boy's
+affairs might be properly and legally adjusted. To every such suggestion
+Cousin Sarah Ann, who carried the key of Ewing's portable desk, had
+turned a deaf ear, saying that there were no debts one way or the other,
+and that she "wouldn't have anybody overhauling the poor boy's private
+papers." Now, however, Major Pagebrook had made up his mind to put the
+desk into Billy's hands without asking the excellent lady's consent.
+
+"Don't take my horse, Jim," he said to his servant upon arriving at
+home, "I am going to ride again presently. Just tie him to the rack till
+I want him."
+
+Going into the house, he met Cousin Sarah Ann, to whom he said:
+
+"Sarah Ann, I will write my own letters and attend to my own business
+hereafter, and I'll thank you not to sign my name for me again. You have
+placed me in a very awkward position, and I can't explain it to anybody
+without exposing you. Understand me now, please. I will not tolerate any
+such interference in future."
+
+Ordinarily Cousin Sarah Ann would have been ready enough with a reply to
+such a remark as this, but just now she was fairly frightened by her
+husband's tone and manner. She saw at a glance that he was in very
+serious earnest, and she knew him well enough to know that it would not
+do to provoke him further. She was always afraid of him, even when she
+was riding rough-shod over him. When he seemed most submissive and she
+most aggressive, she was in the habit of scanning his countenance very
+carefully, as an engineer watches his steam gauge. When she saw steam
+rising, she usually had the safety valve--a flood of tears--ready for
+immediate use. Just now she saw indications of an explosion, which
+appalled her, and she dared not face the danger for a moment. Without
+reply, therefore, she sank, weeping, into the nearest chair, while her
+husband walked into her room, opened her wardrobe, and took from it the
+little desk in which his son's letters and papers were locked. Coming
+back to her he said:
+
+"I will take the key to this desk, if you please."
+
+She looked up with a frightened countenance, and asked:
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I want to open the desk."
+
+"What are you going to do with it?"
+
+"I'm going to put it into my lawyer's hands."
+
+"Wait then. I must look over the papers first."
+
+"No; Billy will do that."
+
+"But there's some of mine in it, private ones."
+
+"It doesn't matter. Billy will sort them and return yours to you."
+
+"But he _sha'n't_ look at my papers."
+
+"Give me the key, Sarah Ann."
+
+"I can't. It's lost."
+
+"Very well, then," said he, taking his knife from his pocket, breaking
+the frail lock, and walking out of the house without another word.
+
+[Illustration: "VERY WELL, THEN."]
+
+Cousin Sarah Ann was thoroughly overcome. She knew that her husband had
+received the reply to her letter, which she had meant to receive
+herself, and she knew too that her mastery over him was at an end, for
+the present at least. Worse than all, she knew that the desk and its
+contents would inevitably go into Billy Barksdale's hands, and she had
+her own reasons for thinking this the sorest affliction possible to her.
+There was no help for it now, however, and she could do nothing except
+throw herself on her bed and shed tears of bitter mortification,
+vexation, and dread.
+
+Meanwhile Major Pagebrook galloped over to Shirley, with the desk under
+his arm. The conversation already reported between Billy and Miss Sudie,
+was hardly more than finished when he dismounted and walked into the
+young lawyer's office.
+
+He opened his business by telling Billy about the note held by Dr.
+Harrison.
+
+"I don't understand it," he said. "Harrison says the note is dated
+November 19th, which was just one day after Ewing came of age, and I
+remember that Ewing was taken sick on the morning of his birthday--very
+sick, as you know, and never left his bed afterwards."
+
+"When was Ewing at the Court House last?" asked Billy.
+
+"Not since the day Robert left."
+
+"Did he owe Harrison any money that you know of?"
+
+"No; but Harrison says Foggy won that much from him, and he had to
+borrow to pay it."
+
+"You are sure, however, that Ewing could not possibly have had a chance
+to sign the note after he came of age?"
+
+"Of course he couldn't. He was delirious from the very first, and we
+never left him."
+
+"I think I see how it is," said Billy. "Foggy and Charley Harrison are
+too intimate for any straight dealings. I reckon Charley was as deeply
+interested in the winnings as Foggy was, but they have made Ewing
+execute the note to Charley for money borrowed to pay Foggy with so that
+it would be legally good. They made him date it ahead, too, so that it
+would appear to have been executed after Ewing came of age. They didn't
+anticipate his sickness, and they haven't thought to compare dates. I
+think we can beat them this time, when they get ready to sue."
+
+"But we mustn't let them sue, Billy," said Major Pagebrook. "I would
+never consent to plead the baby act or to get out of it by any legal
+quibble if the signature is genuine, as I reckon it is. That wouldn't be
+honorable. No, I shall pay the note off; and I only want to know whether
+I must charge it to Ewing's estate or not, after taking out
+administration papers. If I can, I ought to, in justice to the other
+children. If I can't, I must pay it myself. Look into it, please, and
+let me know about it. I have brought you Ewing's desk, so you can look
+over all his papers and attend to all his affairs for me. I want to get
+everything straight." So saying he took his leave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+_Mr. Barksdale, the Younger, Goes upon a Journey._
+
+
+Not until the next morning did Mr. Billy find time to examine the papers
+in Ewing's desk. Indeed, even then he deemed the matter one of very
+little consequence, inasmuch as the papers, whatever they might happen
+to be, were probably of no legal importance, being of necessity the work
+of a minor. There might be memoranda there, however, and possibly a will
+disposing of personal property, which, under the law of Virginia, would
+be good if executed by a minor over eighteen years of age.
+
+In view of these possibilities, therefore, Billy sat down to the task of
+examining the papers, which were pretty numerous, such as they were.
+After awhile he became interested in the very miscellaneousness of the
+assortment. Little memoranda were there--of the date on which a horse
+had been shod; of the amount paid for a new pair of boots; of the times
+at which the boy had written letters to his friends, and of a hundred
+other unimportant things. There were bits of poor verse, too, such as
+may be found in the desk of almost every boy. Old letters, full of
+nothing, were there in abundance, but nothing which could possibly be of
+any value to anybody. On all the letters, except one, was marked, in
+Ewing's handwriting, "To be burned without reading, in case of my
+death." The one exception attracted Billy's attention, and opening it,
+he was surprised to find Robert Pagebrook's name appended to it. It was,
+in fact, the letter which Cousin Sarah Ann had opened during her son's
+last illness. After reading it Mr. Billy sat down to think. Presently,
+looking at his watch, he went to the door and called a servant.
+
+"Go and ask your Miss Sudie to put two or three shirts, and some socks
+and handkerchiefs into my satchel for me, and then you go and tell
+Polidore to saddle Graybeard and the bay, and get ready to go with me to
+the Court House directly. Do you hear?"
+
+The servant made no answer to the question with which Mr. Billy closed
+his speech. Indeed that gentleman expected none. Virginians always ask
+"do you hear?" when they give instructions to servants, and they never
+get or expect an answer. Without the question, however, they would never
+secure attention to the instruction. To say, "do so and so," without
+adding, "do you hear?" would be the idlest possible waste of words on
+the part of any one giving an order to the average Virginian house
+servant.
+
+Mr. Billy was in the habit of making sudden journeys on business,
+without giving the slightest warning to the family except that contained
+in a request that his satchel or saddle-bags be packed, so that Miss
+Sudie was not in the least surprised when his present message came to
+her. She was surprised, however, when, instead of riding away without a
+word of farewell, as he usually did, he came into the house, and,
+kissing her tenderly, said:
+
+"Keep your spirits up, Sudie, and don't let things worry you too much.
+I'm going to Richmond on the two o'clock train, and don't know how long
+I'll be gone. Good-by, little girl," and he kissed her again. All this
+was quite out of character, Miss Sudie felt. Billy was affectionate
+enough, at all times, but he detested leave-takings, and always avoided
+them when he could. To seek one was quite unlike him, and Miss Sudie was
+puzzled to know what prompted him to do it on this particular occasion.
+He rode away, however, without offering any explanation whatever.
+
+Mr. Billy went to Richmond, as he had said he intended doing, but he did
+not remain there an hour. He went to the cashier of a bank, a gentleman
+with whom he was well acquainted, got from him a letter of introduction
+to a prominent man in Philadelphia, and left for that city on the first
+train.
+
+Arriving in Philadelphia about nine o'clock the next day, Mr. Billy ate
+a hasty breakfast and proceeded to the little collegiate institute in
+which Robert had once been a professor, as the reader will remember.
+Introducing himself to President Currier he asked for a private
+interview, and was invited for the purpose into Dr. Currier's inner
+office.
+
+"I believe, doctor," he said, after telling that gentleman who he was,
+"that there was something due Professor Pagebrook on his salary at the
+time his connection with this college terminated, was there not?"
+
+"Yes, sir; there was about three hundred dollars due him, if I remember
+correctly, but it has been paid, I think."
+
+"Have you any way of ascertaining precisely how and when?" asked Billy.
+
+"Yes; my own letter-book should show. Let me see," turning over the
+leaves, "Ah, here it is. A draft for the amount was sent to him by
+letter on the eighth of November, addressed to ---- Court House,
+Virginia."
+
+"Thank you," said Billy. "The draft, I suppose, was regular New York
+Exchange?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Would you mind telling me from what bank you bought it, and to whose
+order, in the first place, it was made payable? Pardon my asking such
+questions, but I need this information for use in the cause of justice."
+
+"O you need offer no apology, I assure you, sir," returned the
+president. "I have nothing to conceal in the matter. The draft was drawn
+by the Susquehanna Bank, and to my order, I think. Yes, I remember
+indorsing it."
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Billy. "You are very courteous, and I am indebted
+to you for information which I should have found it difficult to get
+from any other source. Good morning, sir."
+
+Leaving the college, which was situated in one of the suburbs, Mr. Billy
+took a carriage and drove into the city. There he delivered his letter
+of introduction, and secured from the gentleman to whom it was
+addressed a personal introduction to the cashier of the Susquehanna
+Bank. To this latter person he said:
+
+"I am looking up evidence in a case, and, if I am not greatly mistaken,
+you can help me in an effort to set a wrong right. On the eighth of last
+month you sold a draft on New York for three hundred dollars, payable to
+the order of David Currier. Now, in the ordinary course of business I
+suppose that draft has been returned to you after payment."
+
+"Yes, if it was paid before the first of the month. We settle with our
+New York correspondents once a month. I'll look at the last batch of
+returned checks and see."
+
+"Thank you. I should be glad to see the indorsements on the paper, if
+possible."
+
+The cashier went to the vault, and returning with a large bundle of
+canceled checks soon found the one wanted. Billy turned it over and
+examined the indorsements on the back. Then, turning to the banker, he
+asked:
+
+"Would it be possible for me to get temporary possession of this draft
+by depositing the amount of its face with you until its return?"
+
+"You merely wish it for use in evidence?" asked the banker.
+
+"That's all," said Billy.
+
+"You can take it, then, without a deposit, Mr. Barksdale. It is of no
+value now, but we usually keep our canceled exchange, so I shall be
+obliged if you will return this when you've done with it."
+
+This was precisely what Robert had come to Philadelphia to secure, and
+after finding what the indorsements on the draft were, he would
+willingly have paid its face outright, if that had been necessary, to
+get possession of it.
+
+Who knows what the value of a bit of writing may be, even after its
+purpose has to all appearance been fully answered? I know a great
+commercial house in which it is an inexorable law that no bit of paper
+once written on in the way of business shall ever be destroyed, however
+valueless it may seem to be; and on more than one occasion the wisdom of
+the rule has been strikingly made manifest. So it was with this paid,
+canceled, and returned draft. Worthless in all eyes but his, to Billy it
+was far more precious than if it had been crisp and new, and payable to
+his own order.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+_The younger Mr. Barksdale Asks to be put upon His Oath._
+
+
+It was nearly noon when the train which brought Billy Barksdale back
+from Philadelphia stopped at the Court House, and that young gentleman
+went from the station immediately to the court room, where the Circuit
+Court, as he knew, was in session.
+
+"Has the grand jury been impaneled yet?" he asked the commonwealth's
+attorney.
+
+"Yes; it has just gone out, but as usual there is nothing for it to do,
+so it will report 'no bills' in an hour or so, I reckon."
+
+"Have me sworn and sent before it then," said Billy. "I think I can put
+it in the way of finding something to do."
+
+The official was astonished, but he lost no time in complying with the
+rather singular request. Billy went before the grand jury, and remained
+there for a considerable time. This was a very unusual occurrence in
+every way, and it quickly produced a buzz of excitement in and about the
+building. There was rarely ever anything for grand juries to do in this
+quiet county, and when there was anything it usually hinged upon some
+publicly known and talked of matter. Everybody knew in advance what it
+was about, and the probable result was easy to predict. Now, however,
+all was mystery. A prominent young lawyer had been sworn and sent before
+the grand jury at his own request, and the length of time during which
+he was detained there effectually dispelled the belief which at first
+obtained, that he merely wanted to secure the presentment of some
+negligent road overseer. Even the commonwealth's attorney could not
+manage to look wise enough, as he sat there stroking his beard, to
+deceive anybody into the belief that he knew what was going on. The
+minutes were very long ones. The excitement soon extended beyond the
+court house, and everybody in the village was on tiptoe with suppressed
+curiosity. The court room was full to overflowing when Billy came
+quietly out of the grand jury's apartment and took his seat in the bar
+as if nothing out of the ordinary course of affairs had happened.
+
+It did not tend to allay the excitement, certainly, when the deputy
+sheriff on duty at the door of the jury room beckoned to the
+commonwealth's attorney and that gentleman went up-stairs three steps at
+a time, disappearing within the chamber devoted to the secret inquest
+and remaining there. When half an hour later Major Edwin Pagebrook was
+called, sworn and sent up as a witness, wild rumors of a secret crime
+among the better classes began to circulate freely in the crowd,
+starting from nowhere and gradually taking definite shape as they spread
+from one to another of the eager villagers.
+
+The excitement was now absolutely painful in its intensity, and even the
+judge himself began walking restlessly back and forth in the space set
+apart for the bench.
+
+When Major Pagebrook came out of the room with a downcast face he went
+immediately home, and Rosenwater, a merchant in the village, was called.
+When he came out, distinct efforts were made to worm the secret from
+him. He was mindful of his oath, however, and refused to say anything.
+
+Finally the members of the grand jury marched slowly down stairs, and
+took their stand in front of the clerk's desk.
+
+"Poll the grand jury," said the judge. When that ceremony was over, the
+question which everybody in the building had been mentally asking for
+hours was formulated by the court.
+
+"Gentlemen of the grand jury, have you any presentments to make?"
+
+"We have, your honor," answered the foreman.
+
+"Read the report of the grand jury, Mr. Clerk."
+
+The official rose and after adjusting his spectacles very deliberately,
+read aloud:
+
+"We, the grand jury, on our oaths present Dr. Charles Harrison and James
+Madison Raves, for forgery and for a conspiracy to defraud Edwin
+Pagebrook, on or about the tenth day of November in this present year
+within the jurisdiction of this honorable court."
+
+The crowd was fairly stunned. Nobody knew or could guess what it meant.
+The commonwealth's attorney was the first to speak.
+
+"As the legal representative of the commonwealth, I move the court to
+issue a warrant for the arrest of Charles Harrison and James Madison
+Raves, and I ask that the grand jury be instructed to return to their
+room and to put their indictments in proper form."
+
+The two men thus accused of crime being present in court were taken in
+charge by the sheriff.
+
+"If the commonwealth's attorney has no further motions to make in this
+case," said the judge, "the court will take a recess, in order to give
+time for the preparation of indictments in due form."
+
+"May it please the court," said the official addressed, "I have only to
+ask that your honor will instruct the sheriff to separate the two
+prisoners during the recess. I do not know that this is necessary, but
+it may tend to further the interests of justice."
+
+"The court sees no reason to refuse the request," said the judge. "Mr.
+Sheriff, you will see that your two prisoners are not allowed to confer
+together in any way until after the reassembling of the court, at four
+o'clock."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+_Mr. William Barksdale Explains._
+
+
+Precisely what Dr. Harrison's emotions were when he found himself in the
+sheriff's hands, nobody is likely ever to know, as that gentleman was
+always of taciturn mood in matters closely concerning himself, and on
+the present occasion was literally dumb.
+
+With Foggy the case was different. He was always a prudent man. He was
+not given to the taking of unnecessary risks for the sake of abstract
+principles. He made no pretensions to the possession of heroic fortitude
+under affliction, and he had no special reputation for high-toned honor
+to lose. The clutch of the law was to him an uncomfortable one, and he
+was prepared to escape it by any route which might happen to be open to
+him. This disposition upon his part was an important factor in the
+problem which Billy had set out to solve. He knew Foggy was a moral
+coward, and upon his cowardice he depended, in part, for the success of
+his undertaking.
+
+As soon as court adjourned the commonwealth's attorney requested the
+members of the grand jury to make themselves as comfortable as might be
+while he should be engaged in the preparation of formal indictments
+against the two prisoners. Going then to his office he closeted himself
+with Billy Barksdale, who had preceded him thither by his request.
+
+"You'll help me with this prosecution, won't you Billy?" he asked.
+
+"With as good a will as I ever carried to a fish fry," said Billy.
+
+"Well, then," said the attorney, "tell me just how the thing stands. I
+confess I'm all in a jumble about it. Begin at the beginning and tell
+the whole story. Then we'll know where we stand and how to proceed."
+
+Accordingly Billy recounted the history of the protested draft; the
+promise to pay; its nonfulfillment and the trouble which ensued. He then
+continued:
+
+"My suspicions as to the real facts of the case were aroused by
+accident. Maj. Pagebrook consulted me a few days ago about a note signed
+by Ewing Pagebrook, drawn in favor of Charley Harrison, which, Harrison
+said, had been given him when he advanced money to Ewing with which to
+pay a gambling debt to Foggy. That note was evidently dated ahead, as it
+bore date of November 19th, one day after Ewing attained his majority,
+when, in fact, the boy was taken ill on the morning of his twenty-first
+birthday, and never left his bed afterwards. This confirmed me in the
+belief that Foggy and Harrison were confederates in their gambling
+operations. They fleeced the boy, and then had him borrow the money with
+which to pay from Harrison, and give a note for it, so as to make the
+consideration good; and they took pains to have him date it ahead, so as
+to get rid of the minority trouble. This by itself would have amounted
+to nothing, but in looking over Ewing's papers I found a letter there
+from Bob Pagebrook, which I happened accidentally to know was received
+during Ewing's illness. Here it is. I'll read it.
+
+"'MY DEAR EWING:--I can not tell you how grieved I am at the news your
+letter brings me. I can ill afford to lose the three hundred dollars
+which I intrusted to you to hand to your father, and even if you do make
+it good when you come of age, as you so solemnly promise me you will, I
+am, meanwhile, placed in a very awkward position with regard to it. I
+promised your father to pay him that money by a certain day, and was
+greatly pleased, as you know, when, upon arriving at the Court House on
+my way north, I found the remittance awaiting me there, as it enabled me
+to make the payment in advance of the time agreed upon. When I, in my
+haste to catch the train, gave you the check to give to your father, I
+dismissed the subject from my mind, and set about the work of repairing
+my fortunes with a light heart, little thinking that matters would turn
+out as they have.
+
+"'But while I am sorely annoyed by the fact that this may place me in an
+awkward position, I am willing to trust my reputation in your hands.
+Remember that you are now bound in honor, not merely to pay this money
+as soon as you shall attain your majority, but also to protect me from
+undeserved disgrace by frankly stating the facts of the case to your
+father in the event of his entertaining doubts of my integrity. This
+much you are in honor bound to do in any case, and you have also given
+me your word that you will do it. If your father shall seem disposed to
+think me not unduly dilatory in the matter of payment, you need tell him
+nothing. You may spare yourself that mortification, send me the money,
+and I will remit it to him, merely saying that unavoidable circumstances
+which I am not at liberty to explain have prevented the earlier payment
+which I intended to make.
+
+"'But in agreeing to do this, Ewing, I am moved solely by my desire to
+shield you from disgrace and consequent ruin. When I gave you that money
+for your father it was a sacred trust, and in converting it to other
+uses you not only wronged me, but you made yourself guilty of something
+very like a crime. Pardon me if I speak plainly, for I am speaking only
+for your good and I speak only to you. I want you to understand how
+terribly wrong and altogether dishonorable your act was, so that you may
+never be guilty of another such. I am not disposed to reproach you, but
+I do want to warn you. You are the son of a gentleman, and you have no
+right to bring disgrace upon your father's name. You ought not to
+gamble, and if you do gamble you have no right to surrender your honor
+in payment of your losses. I promise you, as you ask me to do, that I
+will not tell what you have done; and you know I never break a promise
+under any circumstances whatever. But in promising this I place my own
+reputation in your keeping, depending upon you, in the event of
+necessity, to frankly acknowledge your fault, so that I may not appear
+to have run away from a debt which in fact I have paid.'
+
+"When I read that letter," continued Billy, "I began to see daylight.
+Bob had given his word of honor to Ewing not to expose him. Ewing had
+died before he could make the money matter good, and Bob, like the
+great, big, honorable, dear old fellow that he is, allowed himself to go
+to jail and bear the reputation of an absconding debtor, rather than
+break his promise to the dead boy. He paid the money again, too. I
+suspected, of course, that Foggy and Charley Harrison were mixed up in
+the matter some way, particularly as the very last visit Ewing ever made
+to the Court House was made on the day that Bob went away. I went to
+Philadelphia, and there found the canceled draft, drawn in favor of
+David Currier; indorsed to Robert Pagebrook; and by him indorsed to
+Edwin Pagebrook. Then followed, as you know, an indorsement to James M.
+Raves, signed 'E. Pagebrook.' That, of course, was written by Ewing, who
+at the suggestion of these two men made the draft over to them--or to
+one of them--by signing his own name, which happened, when written with
+the initial only, to be the same as his father's. Foggy then indorsed it
+to Harrison, and he, being respectable, had no difficulty in getting
+Rosenwater to cash it for him. It never entered Rosenwater's head, of
+course, to question any of the signatures back of Harrison's. Now my
+theory is that this draft did not cover Ewing's losses by two hundred
+and twenty-five dollars; and so the two thrifty gentlemen made the boy
+execute the note that Harrison holds for that amount, dating it ahead,
+and making it for borrowed money."
+
+"You're right, Barksdale, without a doubt," said the commonwealth's
+attorney; "but how are we going to make a jury see it? There's plenty of
+evidence to found an indictment on, but I'm afraid there a'n't enough to
+secure a conviction."
+
+"That's true," said Billy. "But we must do our very best. If we can't
+convict both, we may one; and even if we fail altogether in the
+prosecution, we will at least expose the rascals, and this county will
+be too hot for them afterwards. Foggy is always shaky in the knees, and
+if we give him half a chance will turn state's evidence. Why not sound
+him on the subject?"
+
+Foggy needed very little sounding indeed. At the first intimation that
+there might be hope for him if he would tell what he knew he volunteered
+a confession, which bore out Billy's theory to the letter. From his
+statement, too, it appeared that Harrison was the author of the whole
+scheme. He had overborne Ewing's scruples, and by dint of threats
+compelled him to commit a practical forgery by writing his own name in
+such a way as to make it appear to be his father's. While Foggy was at
+it he made a clean breast, telling all about his partnership with
+Harrison in the gambling operations, and admitting that the note
+Harrison held was dated ahead and given solely for a gambling debt.
+
+The commonwealth's attorney agreed to enter a _nolle prosequi_ in
+Foggy's case, and to transfer him, at the trial, from the prisoner's box
+to the witness stand.
+
+When Billy came out from this conference he found Major Pagebrook
+awaiting an opportunity to speak to him. The major, it seems, after
+going home had returned to the Court House.
+
+"Billy," he said, "I know now about that letter from Robert to Ewing.
+Sarah Ann has told me she read it when it came. What is to be done about
+it?"
+
+"Nothing," said Billy, "except that you will of course return Robert the
+extra three hundred dollars he has paid you."
+
+"Of course I'll do that. But I mean--the fact is I don't want that
+letter to appear on the trial. You will have to tell where you got it,
+and it will come out, in spite of everything, that Sarah Ann knew of
+it."
+
+"Well, Cousin Edwin, what am I to do? This has been a wretched business
+from first to last. Poor Bob has suffered severely for Ewing's fault,
+and--I must speak plainly--through Cous--through your wife's iniquity.
+Not only has he had to pay the money twice, he has been sent to jail,
+and but for a lucky accident his reputation as an honorable man would
+have been destroyed forever, and that merely to gratify your wife's
+petty and unreasonable spite against him. It became my duty to unravel
+this mystery for the sake of freeing Bob from an unjust and undeserved
+disgrace. In doing that I have accidentally stumbled upon the discovery
+of a crime, and even if it were not illegal I am not the man to compound
+a felony. For you I am heartily sorry, but your wife is only reaping
+what she has sown. I would do anything honorable to spare your feelings,
+Cousin Edwin, but I can not help giving evidence in this case. I really
+do not see, however, precisely how Bob's letter can be used as evidence.
+If it had been sufficient in itself to establish the facts to which it
+referred I should have used it to set Bob right, and the thing would
+have ended there. But Bob's statement was of course an interested one,
+and I feared that after a time, if not immediately, gossip would seize
+upon that point and say the whole thing was made up merely to clear Bob.
+I knew he would never show Ewing's letter to which his was a reply, and
+so I set myself to work hunting up the draft. I don't see how the letter
+can well come up on the trial, but if it should become necessary for me
+to tell about it, I must tell all about it, of course."
+
+Major Pagebrook walked away, his head bowed as if there were a heavy
+weight upon his shoulders, and Billy pitied him heartily. This woman,
+who, in her groundless malignity, had wrought so much wrong and brought
+so much of sorrow upon the good old man, was his wife, and he could not
+free himself from the fact or its consequences. He had never willingly
+done a wrong in his life, and it seemed peculiarly hard that he should
+now have to suffer so sorely for the sins of the woman whom he called
+wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+_Which Is also The Last._
+
+
+Upon leaving Major Pagebrook Billy mounted his horse and galloped away
+toward Shirley, not caring to remain till the court should reassemble at
+four, as there could hardly be any business done beyond the formal
+presentation of the indictments by the grand jury and the committal of
+the prisoners to await trial.
+
+When he entered the yard gate at Shirley he found his father, who had
+returned from the court house some time before, awaiting him.
+
+"I have not told Sudie, my son," said the old gentleman. "I found it
+hard to keep my lips closed, but you have managed this affair grandly,
+my boy, and you ought to have the pleasure of telling the story in your
+own way. Go into the office, and I'll send Sudie to you."
+
+Miss Sudie was naturally enough alarmed when her uncle, repressing
+everything like an expression of joy, and in doing that managing to look
+as solemn as a death warrant, told her that Billy wanted to see her in
+the office immediately. But Billy's look, as she entered, reassured her.
+He met her just inside the door, and taking her face between his hands,
+said:
+
+"I'm as proud and as glad as a boy with red morocco tops to his boots,
+little girl."
+
+[Illustration: "I'M AS PROUD AND AS GLAD AS A BOY WITH RED MOROCCO TOPS
+TO HIS BOOTS."]
+
+"What about, Cousin Billy?" asked Miss Sudie in a tremor of uncertainty.
+
+"Because I've been doing the duty you set me. I've been 'turning
+something up.' I've torn the mask off of that dear old rascal Bob
+Pagebrook, and shown him up in his true colors. It's just shameful the
+way he's been deceiving us, making us think him an absconding debtor and
+all that when he a'n't anything of the sort. He's as true as--as you
+are. There; that's a figure of speech he'd approve if he could hear it,
+and he shall too. I'm going to write him a letter to-night, telling him
+just what I think of him."
+
+There was a little flutter in Miss Sudie's manner as she sat down,
+unable to stand any longer.
+
+"Tell me about it, please," was all she could say.
+
+"Well, in a word, Bob's all right, with a big balance over. He's as
+straight as a well rope when the bucket's full. Let me make you
+understand that in advance, and then I'll tell my story."
+
+And with this Billy proceeded in his own way to tell the young woman all
+about the visit to Philadelphia and its results. When he had finished
+Miss Sudie simply sat and looked at him, smiling through her tears the
+thankfulness she could not put into words. When after awhile she found
+her voice she said some things which were very pleasant indeed to Mr.
+Billy in the hearing.
+
+The next day's mail carried three letters to Mr. Robert Pagebrook. What
+Miss Sudie said in hers I do not know, and if I did I should not tell.
+Col. Barksdale wrote in a stately way, as he always did when he meant to
+be particularly affectionate, the gist of his letter lying in the
+sentence with which he opened it, which was:
+
+"I did not know, until now, how much of your father there is in you."
+
+Mr. Billy's letter would make the fortune of any comic paper if it could
+be published. Robert insists that there were just three hundred and
+sixty-five hitherto unheard of metaphors in the body of it, and
+twenty-one more in the postscript. He says he counted them carefully.
+
+Naturally enough, after all that had happened, everybody at Shirley
+wanted Robert to come back again as soon as possible, and one and all
+entreated him to spend the Christmas there. This he promised to do, but
+at the last moment he was forced to abandon his purpose in consequence
+of the utter failure of Mr. Dudley's health, an occurrence which left
+Robert with the entire burden of the paper upon him, and made it
+impossible for him to leave New York during the holidays. Even with
+Robert there the publishers were anxious about the management of the
+paper at so critical a time; but Robert's single-handed success fully
+justified the confidence Mr. Dudley had felt and expressed in his
+ability to conduct the paper, and when, a month later, Dudley resigned
+entirely, to go abroad in search of health, our friend Robert Pagebrook
+was promoted to his place and pay, having won his way in a few months to
+a position in his new profession which he had not hoped to gain without
+years of patient toil.
+
+The rest of my story hardly needs telling. The winter was passed in hard
+work on Robert's part, but the work was of a sort which it delighted him
+to do. He knew the worth of printed words, and rejoiced in the
+possession of that power which the printing-press only can give to a
+man, multiplying him, as it were, and enabling him to give utterance to
+his thought in the presence of an audience too vast and too widely
+scattered ever to be reached by any one human voice. It was a favorite
+theory of his, too, that printed words carry with them some of the force
+expended upon them by the press itself--that a sentence which would fall
+meaningless from its author's lips may mold a score of human lives if it
+be put in type. He was and is an enthusiast in his work, and never
+apostle went forth to preach a new gospel with more of earnestness or
+with a stronger sense of responsibility than Robert Pagebrook brings
+with him daily to his desk.
+
+The winter softened into spring, and when the spring was richest in its
+promise there was a quiet wedding at Shirley.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My story is fully told, but my friend who writes novels insists that I
+must not lay down the pen until I shall have gathered up what he calls
+the loose threads, and knitted them into a seemly and unraveled end.
+
+Major Pagebrook, dreading the possible exposure of his wife's
+misconduct, placed money in the hands of a friend, and that friend
+became surety for Dr. Harrison's appearance when called for trial. Of
+course Dr. Harrison betook himself to other parts, going, indeed, to the
+West Indies, where he died of yellow fever a year or two later. Foggy
+disappeared also, but whither he went I really do not know.
+
+Billy Barksdale is still a bachelor, and still likes to listen while
+Aunt Catherine explains relationships with her keys.
+
+Col. Barksdale has retired from practice, and lives quietly at Shirley.
+
+Cousin Sarah Ann is still Cousin Sarah Ann, but she lives in Richmond
+now, having discovered years ago that the air of the country did not
+agree with her.
+
+Robert and Sudie have a pretty little place in the country, within half
+an hour's ride of New York, and I sometimes run out to spend a quiet
+Sunday with Cousin Sudie. Robert I can see in his office any day. Their
+oldest boy, William Barksdale Pagebrook, entered college last
+September.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE Hoosier School-Master.
+
+By EDWARD EGGLESTON.
+
+
+Finely Illustrated, with 12 full-page Engravings and Numerous other
+Cuts.
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+    Chapter      I.--A Private Lesson from a Bull-dog.
+    Chapter     II.--A Spell Coming.
+    Chapter    III.--Mirandy, Hank, and Shocky.
+    Chapter     IV.--Spelling down the Master.
+    Chapter      V.--The Walk Home.
+    Chapter     VI.--A Night at Pete Jones's.
+    Chapter    VII.--Ominous Remarks of Mr. Jones.
+    Chapter   VIII.--The Struggle in the Dark.
+    Chapter     IX.--Has God Forgotten Shocky?
+    Chapter      X.--The Devil of Silence.
+    Chapter     XI.--Miss Martha Hawkins.
+    Chapter    XII.--The Hardshell Preacher.
+    Chapter   XIII.--A Struggle for the Mastery.
+    Chapter    XIV.--A Crisis with Bud.
+    Chapter     XV.--The Church of the Best Licks.
+    Chapter    XVI.--The Church Militant.
+    Chapter   XVII.--A Council of War.
+    Chapter  XVIII.--Odds and Ends.
+    Chapter    XIX.--Face to Face.
+    Chapter     XX.--God Remembers Shocky.
+    Chapter    XXI.--Miss Nancy Sawyer.
+    Chapter   XXII.--Pancakes.
+    Chapter  XXIII.--A Charitable Institution.
+    Chapter   XXIV.--The Good Samaritan.
+    Chapter    XXV.--Bud Wooing.
+    Chapter   XXVI.--A Letter and its Consequences.
+    Chapter  XXVII.--A Loss and a Gain.
+    Chapter XXVIII.--The Flight.
+    Chapter   XXIX.--The Trial.
+    Chapter    XXX.--"Brother Sodom."
+    Chapter   XXXI.--The Trial Concluded.
+    Chapter  XXXII.--After the Battle.
+    Chapter XXXIII.--Into the Light.
+    Chapter  XXXIV.--"How it Came Out."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE END OF THE WORLD.
+
+A LOVE STORY.
+
+BY EDWARD EGGLESTON.
+
+Author of "The Hoosier School-master," etc.
+
+With 15 full page Engravings, and numerous other Fine Illustrations.
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+    Chapter
+          I.--In Love with a Dutchman.
+         II.--An Explosion.
+        III.--A Farewell.
+         IV.--A Counter-Irritant.
+          V.--At the Castle.
+         VI.--The Backwoods Philosopher.
+        VII.--Within and Without.
+       VIII.--Figgers won't Lie.
+         IX.--The New Singing-Master.
+          X.--An Offer of Help.
+         XI.--The Coon-dog Argument.
+        XII.--Two Mistakes.
+       XIII.--The Spider Spins.
+        XIV.--The Spider's Web.
+         XV.--The Web Broken.
+        XVI.--Jonas Expounds the Subject.
+       XVII.--The Wrong Pew.
+      XVIII.--The Encounter.
+        XIX.--The Mother.
+         XX.--The Steam-Doctor.
+        XXI.--The Hawk in a New Part.
+       XXII.--Jonas Expresses his Opinion on Dutchmen.
+      XXIII.--Somethin' Ludikerous.
+       XXIV.--The Giant Great-heart.
+        XXV.--A Chapter of Betweens.
+       XXVI.--A Nice Little Game.
+      XXVII.--The Result of an Evening with Gentlemen.
+     XXVIII.--Waking up an Ugly Customer.
+       XXIX.--August and Norman.
+        XXX.--Aground.
+       XXXI.--Cynthy Ann's Sacrifice.
+      XXXII.--Julia's Enterprise.
+     XXXIII.--The Secret Stairway.
+      XXXIV.--The Interview.
+       XXXV.--Getting Ready for the End.
+      XXXVI.--The Sin of Sanctimony.
+     XXXVII.--The Deluge.
+    XXXVIII.--Scaring a Hawk.
+      XXXIX.--Jonas takes an Appeal.
+         XL.--Selling Out.
+        XLI.--The Last Day and What Happened in it.
+       XLII.--For Ever and Ever.
+      XLIII.--The Midnight Alarm.
+       XLIV.--Squaring Accounts.
+        XLV.--New Plans.
+       XLVI.--The Shiveree.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MYSTERY OF METROPOLISVILLE.
+
+By EDWARD EGGLESTON,
+
+_Author of "The Hoosier School-Master," "The End of the World," etc._
+
+With Thirteen Illustrations.
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+Preface.--Words Beforehand. Chapter 1. The Autocrat of the
+Stage-Coach.--2. The Sod Tavern.--3. Land and Love.--4. Albert and
+Katy.--5. Corner Lots.--6. Little Katy's Lover.--7. Catching and getting
+Caught.--8. Isabel Marlay.--9. Lovers and Lovers.--10. Plausaby, Esq.,
+takes a Fatherly Interest.--11, About Several Things.--12. An
+Adventure.--13. A Shelter.--14. The Inhabitant.--15. An Episode.--16.
+The Return.--17. Sawney and his Old Love.--18. A Collision.--19.
+Standing Guard in Vain.--20. Sawney and Westcott.--21. Rowing.--22.
+Sailing.--23. Sinking.--24. Dragging.--25. Afterwards.--26. The
+Mystery.--27. The Arrest.--28. The Tempter.--29. The Trial.--30. The
+Penitentiary.--31. Mr. Lurton.--32. A Confession.--33. Death.--34. Mr.
+Lurton's Courtship.--35. Unbarred.--36. Isabel.--37. The Last.--Words
+Afterwards.
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.--BY FRANK BEARD.
+
+His Unselfish Love found a Melancholy Recompense.--The Superior
+Being.--Mr. Minorkey and the Fat Gentleman.--Plausaby sells Lots.--"By
+George! He! he! he!"--Mrs. Plausaby.--The Inhabitant.--A Pinch of
+Snuff.--Mrs. Ferret--One Savage Blow full in the face.--"What on Airth's
+the Matter?"--The Editor of "The Windmill."--"Get up and Foller!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE; A Guide to the Successful Propagation and
+Cultivation OF FLORISTS' PLANTS.
+
+By PETER HENDERSON, Bergen City, N. J.,
+
+AUTHOR OF "GARDENING FOR PROFIT."
+
+
+MR. HENDERSON is known as the largest Commercial Florist In the country.
+In the present work he gives a full account of his modes of propagation
+and cultivation. It is adapted to the wants of the amateur, as well as
+the professional grower.
+
+The scope of the work may be judged from the following
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+    Aspect and Soil.
+    Laying out Lawn and Flower Gardens.
+    Designs for Flower Gardens.
+    Planting of Flower Beds.
+    Soils for Potting.
+    Temperature and Moisture.
+    The Potting of Plants.
+    Cold Frames--Winter Protection.
+    Construction of Hot-Beds.
+    Greenhouse Structures.
+    Modes of Heating.
+    Propagation by Seeds.
+    Propagation by Cuttings.
+    Propagation of Lilies.
+    Culture of the Rose.
+    Culture of the Verbena.
+    Culture of the Tuberose.
+    Orchid Culture.
+    Holland Bulbs.
+    Cape Bulbs.
+    Winter-Flowering Plants.
+    Construction of Bouquets.
+    Hanging Baskets.
+    Window Gardening.
+    Rock-Work.
+    Insects.
+    Nature's Law of Colors.
+    Packing Plants.
+    Plants by Mail.
+    Profits of Floriculture.
+    Soft-Wooded Plants.
+    Annuals.
+    Hardy Herbaceous Plants.
+    Greenhouse Plants.
+    Diary of Operations for each Day of the Year.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PARSONS ON THE ROSE.
+
+A TREATISE ON THE Propagation, Culture, and History of the Rose.
+
+By SAMUEL B. PARSONS.
+
+NEW AND REVISED EDITION.
+
+ILLUSTRATED.
+
+
+The Rose is the only flower that can be said to have a history. It is
+popular now, and was so centuries ago. In his work upon the Rose, Mr.
+Parsons has gathered up the curious legends concerning the flower, and
+gives us an idea of the esteem in which it was held in former times. A
+simple garden classification has been adopted, and the leading varieties
+under each class enumerated and briefly described. The chapters on
+multiplication, cultivation, and training, are very full, and the work
+is altogether the most complete of any before the public.
+
+The following is from the author's Preface:
+
+     "In offering a new edition of this work, the preparation of which
+     gave us pleasure more than twenty years ago, we have not only
+     carefully revised the garden classification, but have stricken out
+     much of the poetry, which, to the cultivator, may have seemed
+     irrelevant, if not worthless. For the interest of the classical
+     scholar, we have retained much of the early history of the Rose,
+     and its connection with the manners and customs of the two great
+     nations of a former age.
+
+     "The amateur will, we think, find the labor of selection much
+     diminished by the increased simplicity of the mode we have adopted,
+     while the commercial gardener will in nowise be injured by the
+     change.
+
+     "In directions for culture, we give the results of our own
+     experience, and have not hesitated to avail ourselves of any
+     satisfactory results in the experience of others, which might
+     enhance the utility of the work."
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+    CHAPTER I.--BOTANICAL CLASSIFICATION.
+    CHAPTER II.--GARDEN CLASSIFICATION.
+    CHAPTER III.--GENERAL CULTURE OF THE ROSE.
+    CHAPTER IV.--SOIL, SITUATION, AND PLANTING.
+    CHAPTER V.--PRUNING, TRAINING, AND BEDDING.
+    CHAPTER VI.--POTTING AND FORCING.
+    CHAPTER VII.--PROPAGATION.
+    CHAPTER VIII.--MULTIPLICATION BY SEED AND HYBRIDIZING.
+    CHAPTER IX.--DISEASES AND INSECTS ATTACKING THE ROSE.
+    CHAPTER X.--EARLY HISTORY OF THE ROSE, AND FABLES RESPECTING ITS
+      ORIGIN.
+    CHAPTER XI.--LUXURIOUS USE OF THE ROSE.
+    CHAPTER XII.--THE ROSE IN CEREMONIES AND FESTIVALS, AND IN THE
+      ADORNMENT OF BURIAL-PLACES.
+    CHAPTER XIII.--THE ROSE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
+    CHAPTER XIV.--PERFUMES OF THE ROSE.
+    CHAPTER XV.--MEDICAL PROPERTIES OF THE ROSE.
+    CHAPTER XVI.--GENERAL REMARKS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BEAUTIFYING COUNTRY HOMES.
+
+_A Hand-Book of Landscape Gardening._
+
+BY J. WEIDENMANN.
+
+A SPLENDID QUARTO VOLUME.
+
+Beautifully Illustrated with numerous fine food Engravings, and with 17
+Full-Page and 7 Double-Page Colored Lithographs OF PLACES ALREADY
+IMPROVED.
+
+MAKE HOME BEAUTIFUL.
+
+NOTICES BY THE PRESS.
+
+
+A home! A home in the country! and a home made beautiful by taste! Here
+are three ideas which invest with a triple charm the subject of this
+exquisite volume. We know of nothing which indicates a more healthy
+progress among our countrymen than the growing taste for such homes. The
+American people are quick to follow a fashion, and it is getting to be
+the fashion to have a place in the country, and to beautify it; and this
+is at once fed and guided by such books as this, which lay down the just
+principles of landscape gardening; and teach all how to use the means at
+their disposal. This book is prepared with careful judgment. It includes
+many plans, and furnishes minute instruction for the laying out of
+grounds and the planting of trees. We have found very great pleasure in
+a first inspection, and doubt not that when another summer returns, we
+shall find the book as practically useful, as it is beautiful to the eye
+and exciting to the imagination.--_N. Y. Evangelist._
+
+We have from Orange Judd & Co. a magnificent manual, entitled
+_Beautifying Country Homes; a Hand-Book of Landscape Gardening_. It is a
+brief treatise on landscape gardening and architecture, explaining the
+principles of beauty which apply to it, and making just those practical
+suggestions of which every builder and owner of a little land, who
+desires to make the most of it in the way of convenience and taste,
+stands in need, in regard to lawns, drainage, roads, drives, walks,
+grading, fences, hedges, trees--their selection and their
+grouping--flowers, water, ornamentation, rock-work, tools, and general
+improvements. The chapter on "improving new places economically" would
+be worth much more than the cost of the book ten times over to many
+persons. The whole is illustrated, not only by little sketches, but by a
+series of full-page lithographs of places which have been actually
+treated in accordance with the principles laid down, with lists of trees
+and shrubs, and other useful suggestions. We have never met with any
+thing--and we have given a good deal of attention to the subject, and
+bought a great many books upon it--which seemed to us so helpful and, in
+general, so trustworthy as this treatise, which we heartily commend. We
+omitted to say that it has been done by Mr. J. Weidenmann,
+Superintendent of the City Park, and of Cedar Hill Cemetery, Hartford,
+Conn.--_Congregationalist_, (Boston.)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Man of Honor, by George Cary Eggleston
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