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CHAPTER XII
THE BISHOP ENGAGES THE ATTENTION OF THE GUIDES
When the boat touched the shore Margery ran to the cabin to assure Mrs. Archibald of her safety, if she had been missed.
The bishop was sticking the stake in the hole from which he had pulled it, when Martin came running to him.
“That’s a pretty piece of business!” cried the young man. “If you wanted to go out in the boat, why didn’t you come to me for the key? You’ve got no right to pull up the stakes we’ve driven down. That’s the same thing as stealing the boat. What’s the matter? Did you tumble overboard? You must be a pretty sort of an oarsman! If the ladies want to go out in the boat, I am here to take them. I’d like you to understand that.”
As has been said before, the bishop could smile under almost any circumstances, and he smiled now, but at the same time his brow wrinkled, which was not common when he smiled.
“I am going down to the shore to get my hat and shoes,” he said, “and I would like you to come along with me. I can’t stand here and talk to you.”
“What do you want?” said Martin.
“Come along and see,” said the bishop; “that is, if you are not afraid.”
That was enough, and the young man walked behind him until they reached the spot where the bishop had taken to the water. Then he stopped, and explained to Martin all that had happened.
“Now,” said he, “what have you got to say?”
Martin, now that he knew that the bishop had plunged into the water for the sake of the beautiful Margery, was more jealously angry than when he had supposed he had merely taken her out to row.
“I haven’t anything to say,” he answered, shortly, “except that parsons had better attend to their own business, if they have any, and let young ladies and boats alone.”
“Oh, that’s all, is it?” said the bishop, and with a quick step forward he clutched the young man’s arm with his right hand, while he seized his belt with the other, and then with a great heave sent him out into the water fully ten feet from the shore. With a splash like a dropped anchor Martin disappeared from view, but soon arose, his head and shoulders above the surface, where he stood for a moment, spluttering and winking and almost dazed.
The bishop stood on the bank and smiled. “Did you fall overboard?” said he. “You must be a pretty sort of a boatman!”
Without replying, Martin began to wade ashore.
“Come on,” said the bishop; “if you can’t get up the bank, I’ll help you.”
But Martin needed no help; he scrambled to the bank, shook himself, and then advanced upon the bishop, fire in his eye and his fist clinched.
“Stop, young man,” said the other. “It would not be fair to you if I did not tell you that I am a boxer and a heavy-weight, and that I threw you into the water because I didn’t want to damage your face and eyes. You were impertinent, but I am satisfied, and the best thing you can do is to go and change your clothes before any one sees you in that plight. You are better off than I am, because I have no clothes with which to make a change.” So saying, he sat down and began to put on his shoes.
Martin stood for a moment and looked at the bishop, he thought of Margery and a possible black eye, and then he walked as fast as he could to his tent to get some dry clothes. He was very wet, he was very hot, he was very angry, and what made him more angry than anything else was a respect for the bishop which was rising in him in spite of all his efforts to keep it down.
When Mr. Archibald and his party came back to camp late in the afternoon, Margery, who had already told her story to Mrs. Archibald, told it to each of the others. Mr. Archibald was greatly moved by the account of the bishop’s bravery. He thoroughly appreciated the danger to which Margery had been exposed. There were doubtless persons who could be trusted so sit quietly in a little boat with only one oar, and to float upon a lake out of sight and sound of human beings until another boat could be secured and brought to the rescue, but Margery was not one of these persons. Her greatest danger had been that she was a child of impulse. He went immediately to Camp Roy to see the bishop and express his gratitude, for no matter how great the foolish good-nature of the man had been, his brave rescue of the girl was all that could be thought of now.
He found the bishop in bed, Mr. Clyde preparing the supper, and Mr. Raybold in a very bad humor.
“It’s the best place for me,” said the bishop, gayly, from under a heavy army blanket. “My bed is something like the carpets in Queen Elizabeth’s time, and this shelter-tent is not one which can be called commodious, but I shall stay here until morning, and then I am sure I shall be none the worse for my dip into the cold lake.”
As Mr. Archibald had seen the black garments of the bishop hanging on a bush as he approached the tent, he was not surprised to find their owner in bed.
“No,” said the bishop, when Mr. Archibald had finished what he had to say, “there is nothing to thank me for. It was a stupid thing to launch a young girl out upon what, by some very natural bit of carelessness, might have become to her the waters of eternity, and it was my very commonplace duty to get her out of the danger into which I had placed her; so this, my dear sir, is really all there is to say about the matter.”
Mr. Archibald differed with him for about ten minutes, and then returned to his camp.
Phil Matlack was also affected by the account of the rescue, and he expressed his feelings to Martin.
“He pulled up the stake, did he?” said Phil. “Well, I’ll make him pull up his stakes, and before he goes I’ve a mind to teach him not to meddle with other people’s affairs.”
“If I were you,” said Martin, “I wouldn’t try to teach him anything.”
“You think he is too stupid to learn?” said Matlack, getting more and more angry at the bishop’s impertinent and inexcusable conduct. “Well, I’ve taught stupid people before this.”
“He’s a bigger man than you are,” said Martin.
Matlack withdrew the knife from the loaf of bread he was cutting, and looked at the young man.
“Bigger?” said he, scornfully. “What’s that got to do with it? A load of hay is bigger than a crow-bar, but I guess the crow-bar would get through the hay without much trouble.”
“You’d better talk about a load of rocks,” said Martin. “I don’t think you’d find it easy to get a crow-bar through them.”
Matlack looked up inquiringly. “Has he been thrashing you?” he asked.
“No, he hasn’t,” said Martin, sharply.
“You didn’t fight him, then?”
“No, I didn’t,” was the answer.
“Why didn’t you? You were here to take charge of this camp and keep things in order. Why didn’t you fight him?”
“I don’t fight that sort of a man,” said Martin, with an air which, if it were not disdainful, was intended to be.
Matlack gazed at him a moment in silence, and then went on cutting the bread. “I don’t understand this thing,” he said to himself. “I must look into it.”
CHAPTER XIII
THE WORLD GOES WRONG WITH MR. RAYBOLD
The next morning Mr. Archibald started out, very early, on a fishing expedition by himself. He was an enthusiastic angler, and had not greatly enjoyed the experience of the day before. He did not object to shooting if there were any legitimate game to shoot, and he liked to tramp through the mountain wilds under the guidance of such a man as Matlack; but to keep company all day with Raybold, who, in the very heart of nature, talked only of the gossip of the town, and who punctuated his small talk by intermittent firing at everything which looked like a bird or suggested the movements of an animal, was not agreeable to him. Clyde was a better fellow, and Mr. Archibald liked him, but he was young and abstracted, and the interest which clings around an abstracted person who is young is often inconsiderable, so he determined for one day at least to leave Sir Cupid to his own devices, for he could not spend all his time defending Margery from amatory dawdle. For this one day he would leave the task to his wife.
That day Mr. Raybold was in a moody mood. Early in the morning he had walked to Sadler’s, his object being to secure from the trunk which he had left there a suit of ordinary summer clothes. He had come to think that perhaps his bicycle attire, although very suitable for this sort of life, failed to make him as attractive in the eyes of youth and beauty as he might be if clothed in more becoming garments. It was the middle of the afternoon before he returned, and as he carried a large package, he went directly to his own camp, and in about half an hour afterwards he came over to Camp Rob dressed in a light suit, which improved his general appearance very much.
In his countenance, however, there was no improvement whatever, for he looked more out of humor than when he had set out, and when he saw that Mrs. Archibald was sitting alone in the shade, reading, and that at a considerable distance Harrison Clyde was seated by Margery, giving her a lesson in drawing upon birch bark, or else taking a lesson from her, his ill-humor increased.
“It is too bad,” said he, taking a seat by Mrs. Archibald without being asked; “everything seems to go wrong out here in these woods. It is an unnatural way to live, anyhow, and I suppose it serves us right. When I went to Sadler’s I found a letter from my sister Corona, who says she would like me to make arrangements for her to come here and camp with us for a time. Now that suits me very well indeed. My sister Corona is a very fine young woman, and I think it would be an excellent thing to have two young ladies here instead of one.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Archibald, “that might be very pleasant. I should be glad for Margery to have a companion of her own sex.”
“I understand precisely,” said Raybold, nodding his head sagaciously; “of her own sex. Yes, I see your drift, and I agree with you absolutely. There is a little too much of that thing over there, and I don’t wonder you are annoyed.”
“I did not say I was annoyed,” said Mrs. Archibald, rather surprised.
“No,” he answered, “you did not say so, but I can read between the lines, even spoken lines. Now when I heard that my sister wanted to come out here,” he continued, “at first I did not like it, for I thought she might be some sort of a restraint upon me; but when I considered the matter further, I became very much in favor of it, and I sent a telegram by the stage telling her to come immediately, and that everything would be ready for her. My sister has a sufficient income of her own, and she likes to have everything suited to her needs. I am different. I am a man of the world, and although I do not always care to conform to circumstances, I can generally make circumstances conform to me. As Shakespeare says, ‘The world is my pottle, and I stir my spoon.’ You must excuse my quoting, but I cannot help it. My life work is to be upon the stage, and where one’s mind is, there will his words be also.”
Mr. Raybold was now in a much more pleasant mood than when he came to sit in the shade with Mrs. Archibald. He was talking; he had found some one who listened and who had very little to say for herself.
“Consequently,” he remarked, “I ordered from Mr. Sadler the very best tent that he had. It has two compartments in it, and it is really as comfortable as a house, and as my sister wrote that she wished a female attendant, not caring to have her meals cooked by boys – a very flippant expression, by-the-way – I have engaged for her a she-guide.”
“A what?” asked Mrs. Archibald.
“A person,” said he, “who is a guide of the female gender. She was the wife of a hunter who was accidentally shot, Sadler told me, by a young man who was with him on a gunning expedition. I told Sadler that it was reprehensible to allow such fellows to have guns, but he said that they are not as dangerous now as they used to be. This is because the guides have learned to beware of them, I suppose. This woman has lived in the woods and knows all about camp life, and Sadler says there could not be a better person found to attend a young lady in camp. So I engaged her, and I must say she charged just as much as if she were a man.”
“Why shouldn’t she,” said Mrs. Archibald, “if she is just as good?”
To this remark Raybold paid no attention. “I will tell you,” he said, “confidentially, of course, and I think you have as much reason to be interested in it as I have, why I came to view with so much favor my sister’s coming here. She is a very attractive young woman, and I think she cannot fail to interest Clyde, and that, of course, will be of advantage to your niece.”
“She is not my niece, you know,” said Mrs. Archibald.
“Well,” said he, “it is all the same. ‘Let it be a bird wing or a flower, so it pleases’ – a quotation which is also Avonian – and if Clyde likes Corona he will let Miss Dearborn alone. That’s the sort of man he is.”
“And in that case,” said Mrs. Archibald, “I suppose you would not be unwilling to provide Margery with company.”
“Madam,” said the young man, leaning forward and fixing his eyes upon the ground, and then turning them upon her without moving his face towards her, “with me all that is a different matter. I may have occasion later to speak to you and your husband upon the subject of Miss Dearborn.”
“In which case,” said Mrs. Archibald, quickly, “I am sure that my husband will be very glad to speak to you. But why, may I ask, were you so disturbed when you came here, just now? You said the world was going wrong.”
“I declare,” said he, knitting his brows and clapping one hand on his knee, “I actually forgot! The world wrong? I should say it was wrong! My sister can’t come, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Can’t come?” asked Mrs. Archibald.
“Of course not,” said he, all his ill-humor having returned. “That fellow, the bishop, is in our camp and in Clyde’s bed. Clyde foolishly gave him his bed because he said the cook-tent was too cramped for a man to stay in it all day.”
“Why need he stay?” asked Mrs. Archibald. “Has he taken cold? Is he sick?”
“No indeed,” said Raybold. “If he were sick we might send for a cart and have him taken to Sadler’s, but the trouble is worse than that. His clothes, in which he foolishly jumped into the water, have shrunken so much that he cannot get them on, and as he has no others, he is obliged to stay in bed.”
“But surely something can be done,” said Mrs. Archibald.
“No,” he interrupted, “nothing can be done. The clothes have dried, and if you could see them as they hang up on the bushes, you would understand why that man can never get into them again. The material is entirely unsuitable for out-door life. Clyde proposes that we shall lend him something, but there are no clothes in this party into which such a sausage of a man could get himself. So there he is, and there, I suppose, he will remain indefinitely; and I don’t want to bring my sister to a camp with a permanently occupied hospital bed in it. As soon as I agreed to Corona’s coming I determined to bounce that man, but now – ” So saying, Mr. Raybold rose, folded his arms, and knit his brows, and as he did so he glanced towards the spot where Margery and Clyde had been sitting, and perceived that the latter had departed, probably to get some more birch bark; and so, with a nod to Mrs. Archibald, he sauntered away, bending his steps, as it were accidentally, in the direction of the young lady left alone.
When Mr. Archibald heard, that evening, of the bishop’s plight and Raybold’s discomfiture, he was amused, but also glad to know there was an opportunity for doing something practical for the bishop. He was beginning to like the man, in spite of his indefiniteness, so he went to see the bedridden prelate who was neither sick nor clerical, and with very little trouble induced him to take a few general measurements of his figure.
“It is so good of you,” said the delighted recumbent, “that I shall not say a word, but step aside in deference to your conscience, whose encomiums will far transcend anything I can say. You will pardon me, I am sure, if I make my measurements liberal. The cost will not be increased, and to live, move, and breathe in a suit of clothes which is large enough for me is a joy which I have not known for a long time. Shoes, did you say, sir? Truly this is generosity supereminent.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Archibald, laughing, “and you also shall have a new hat. I will fit you out completely, and if this helps you to make a new and a good start in life, I shall be greatly gratified.”
“Sir,” said the bishop, the moisture of genuine gratitude in his eyes, “you are doing, I think, far more good than you can imagine, and pardon me if I suggest, since you are going to get me a hat, that it be not of clerical fashion. If everything is to be new, I should like everything different, and I am certain the cost will be less.”
“All right,” said Mr. Archibald. “I will now make a list of what you need, and I will write to one of my clerks, who will procure everything.”
When Mr. Archibald went back to his camp he met Raybold, stalking moodily. Having been told what had been done for the bishop’s relief, the young man was astonished.
“A complete outfit, and for him? I would not have dreamed of it; and besides, it is of no use; it must be days before the clothes arrive, and my sister wishes to come immediately.”
“Do you suppose,” exclaimed Mr. Archibald, “that I am doing this for the sake of your sister? I am doing it for the man himself.”
When Mr. Archibald told his wife of this little interview they both laughed heartily.
“If Mr. Raybold’s sister,” said she, “is like him, I do not think we shall care to have her here; but sisters are often very different from their brothers. However, the bishop need not prevent her coming. If his clothes do not arrive before she does, I am sure there could be no objection to her tent being set up for a time in some of the open space in our camp, and then we shall become sooner acquainted with her; if she is a suitable person, I shall be very glad indeed for Margery to have a companion.”
“All right,” said Mr. Archibald; “let her pitch her tent where she pleases. I am satisfied.”
CHAPTER XIV
THE ASSERTION OF INDIVIDUALITY
It was a week after her brother had sent her his telegram before Miss Corona Raybold arrived at Camp Rob, with her tent, her outfit, and her female guide. Mrs. Archibald had been surprised that she did not appear sooner, for, considering Mr. Raybold’s state of mind, she had supposed that his sister had wished to come at the earliest possible moment.
“But,” said Raybold, in explaining the delay, “Corona is very different from me. In my actions ‘the thunder’s roar doth crowd upon the lightning’s heels,’ as William has told us.”
“Where in Shakespeare is that?” asked Mrs. Archibald.
Mr. Raybold bent his brow. “For the nonce,” said he, “I do not recall the exact position of the lines.” And after that he made no more Avonian quotations to Mrs. Archibald.
The arrival of the young lady was, of course, a very important event, and even Mr. Archibald rowed in from the lake when he saw her caravan approaching, herself walking in the lead. She proved to be a young person of medium height, slight, and dressed in a becoming suit of dark blue. Her hair and eyes were dark, her features regular and of a classic cut, and she wore eye-glasses. Her manner was quiet, and at first she appeared reserved, but she soon showed that if she wished to speak she could talk very freely. She wore an air of dignified composure, but was affable, and very attentive to what was said to her.
Altogether she made in a short time an extremely favorable impression upon Mr. and Mrs. Archibald, and in a very much less time an extremely unfavorable impression upon Margery.
Miss Raybold greeted everybody pleasantly, even informing Matlack that she had heard of him as a famous guide, and after thanking Mr. and Mrs. Archibald for their permission to set up her tent on the outskirts of their camp, she proceeded to said tent, which was speedily made ready for her.
Mrs. Perkenpine, her guide, was an energetic woman, and under her orders the men who brought the baggage bestirred themselves wonderfully.
Just before supper, to which meal the Raybolds and Mr. Clyde had been invited, the latter came to Mr. Archibald, evidently much troubled and annoyed.
“I am positively ashamed to mention it to you, sir,” he said, “but I must tell you that Raybold has ordered the men who brought his sister’s tent to bring our tent over here and put it up near her’s. I was away when this was done, and I wish to assure you most earnestly that I had nothing to do with it. The men have gone, and I don’t suppose we can get it back to-night.”
Mr. Archibald opened his eyes very wide. “Your friend is certainly a remarkable young man,” said he, “but we must not have any bad feeling in camp, so let everything remain as it is for to-night. I suppose he wished to be near his sister, but at least he might have asked permission.”
“I think,” said Clyde, “that he did not so much care to be near his sister as he did to be away from the bishop, who is now left alone in our little shelter-tent.”
Mr. Archibald laughed. “Well,” said he, “he will come to no harm, and we must see that he has some supper.”
“Oh, I shall attend to that,” said Clyde, “and to his breakfast also. And, now I come to think of it, I believe that one reason Raybold moved our tent over here was to get the benefit of his sister’s cook. The bishop did our cooking, you know, before he took to his bed.”
That evening Miss Raybold joined the party around the camp-fire. She declared that in the open air she did not in the least object to the use of tobacco, and then she asked Mr. Archibald if his two guides came to the camp-fire after their work was done.
“They do just as they please,” was the answer. “Sometimes they come over here and smoke their pipes a little in the background, and sometimes they go off by themselves. We are very democratic here in camp, you know.”
“I like that,” said Miss Raybold, “and I will have Mrs. Perkenpine come over when she has arranged the tent for the night. Arthur, will you go and tell her?”
Her brother did not immediately rise to execute this commission. He hoped that Mr. Clyde would offer to do the service, but the latter did not improve the opportunity to make himself agreeable to the new-comer, and Raybold did the errand.
Harrison Clyde was sitting by Margery, and Margery was giving a little attention to what he said to her and a great deal of attention to Corona Raybold.
“More self-conceit and a better-fitting dress I never saw,” thought Margery; “it’s loose and easy, and yet it seems to fit perfectly, and I do believe she thinks she is some sort of an upper angel who has condescended to come down here just to see what common people are like.”
Corona talked to Mr. Archibald. It was her custom always to talk to the principal personage of a party.
“It gives me pleasure, sir,” said she, “to meet with you and your wife. It is so seldom that we find any one – ” She was interrupted by Mrs. Perkenpine, who stood behind her.
The she-guide was a large woman, apparently taller than Matlack. Her sunburnt face was partly shaded by a man’s straw hat, secured on her head by strings tied under her chin. She wore a very plain gown, coarse in texture, and of a light-blue color, which showed that it had been washed very often. Her voice and her shoes, the latter well displayed by her short skirt, creaked, but her gray eyes were bright, and moved about after the manner of searchlights.
“Well,” said she to Miss Raybold, “what do you want?”
Corona turned her head and placidly gazed up at her. “I simply wished to let you know that you might join this company here if you liked. The two men guides are coming, you see.”
Mrs. Perkenpine glanced around the group. “Is there any hunting stories to be told?” she asked.
Mr. Archibald laughed. “I don’t know,” he said, “but perhaps we may have some. I am sure that Matlack here has hunting stories to tell.”
Mrs. Perkenpine shook her head. “No, sir,” said she; “I don’t want none of his stories. I’ve heard them all mostly two or three times over.”
“I dare say you have,” said Phil, seating himself on a fallen trunk, a little back from the fire; “but you see, Mrs. Perkenpine, you are so obstinate about keepin’ on livin’. If you’d died when you was younger, you wouldn’t have heard so many of those stories.”
“There’s been times,” said she, “when you was tellin’ the story of the bear cubs and the condensed milk, when I wished I had died when I was younger, or else you had.”
“Perhaps,” said Miss Raybold, in a clear, decisive voice, “Mr. Matlack may know hunting stories that will be new to all of us, but before he begins them I have something which I would like to say.”
“All right,” said Mrs. Perkenpine, seating herself promptly upon the ground; “if you’re goin’ to talk, I’ll stay. I’d like to know what kind of things you do talk about when you talk.”
“I was just now remarking,” said Miss Corona, “that I am very glad indeed to meet with those who, like Mr. and Mrs. Archibald, are willing to set their feet upon the modern usages of society (which would crowd us together in a common herd) and assert their individuality.”
Mr. Archibald looked at the speaker inquiringly.
“Of course,” said she, “I refer to the fact that you and Mrs. Archibald are on a wedding-journey.”
At this remark Phil Matlack rose suddenly from the tree-trunk and Martin dropped his pipe. Mr. Clyde turned his gaze upon Margery, who thereupon burst out laughing, and then he looked in amazement from Mr. Archibald to Mrs. Archibald and back again. Mrs. Perkenpine sat up very straight and leaned forward, her hands upon her knees.
“Is it them two sittin’ over there?” she said, pointing to Margery and Clyde. “Are they on a honey-moon?”
“No!” exclaimed Arthur Raybold, in a loud, sharp voice. “What an absurdity! Corona, what are you talking about?”
To this his sister paid no attention whatever. “I think,” she said, “it was a noble thing to do. An assertion of one’s inner self is always noble, and when I heard of this assertion I wished very much to know the man and the woman who had so asserted themselves, and this was my principal reason for determining to come to this camp.”
“But where on earth,” asked Mr. Archibald, “did you hear that we were on a wedding-journey?”
“I read it in a newspaper,” said Corona.
“I do declare,” exclaimed Mrs. Archibald, “everything is in the newspapers! I did think that we might settle down here and enjoy ourselves without people talking about our reason for coming!”
“You don’t mean to say,” cried Mrs. Perkenpine, now on her feet, “that you two elderly ones is the honey-mooners?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Archibald, looking with amusement on the astonished faces about him, “we truly are.”
“Well,” said the she-guide, seating herself, “if I’d stayed an old maid as long as that, I think I’d stuck it out. But perhaps you was a widow, mum?”
“No, indeed,” cried Mr. Archibald; “she was a charming girl when I married her. But just let me tell you how the matter stands,” and he proceeded to relate the facts of the case. “I thought,” he said, in conclusion, turning to Matlack, “that perhaps you knew about it, for I told Mr. Sadler, and I supposed he might have mentioned it to you.”
“No, sir,” said Matlack, relighting his pipe, “he knows me better than that. If he’d called me and said, ‘Phil, I want you to take charge of a couple that’s goin’ honey-moonin’ about twenty-five years after they married, and a-doin’ it for somebody else and not for themselves,’ I’d said to him, ‘They’re lunatics, and I won’t take charge of them.’ And Peter he knows I would have thought that and would have said it, and so he did not mention the particulars to me. He knows that the only things that I’m afraid of in this world is lunatics. ‘Tisn’t only what they might do to me, but what they might do to themselves, and I won’t touch ’em.”
“I hope,” said Mrs. Archibald, “that you don’t consider us lunatics now that you have heard why we are here.”
“Oh no,” said the guide; “I’ve found that you’re regular common-sense people, and I don’t change my opinions even when I’ve heard particulars; but if I’d heard particulars first, it would have been all up with my takin’ charge of you.”
“And you knew it all the time?” said Clyde to Margery, speaking so that she only could hear.
“I knew it,” she said, “but I didn’t think it worth talking about. Do you know Mr. Raybold’s sister? Do you like her?”
“I have met her,” said Clyde; “but she is too lofty for me.”
“What is there lofty about her?” said Margery.
“Well,” said he, “she is lofty because she has elevated ideas. She goes in for reform; and for pretty much all kinds, from what I have heard.”
“I think she is lofty,” remarked Margery, “because she is stuck-up. I don’t like her.”
“It is so seldom,” Corona now continued, “that we find people who are willing to assert their individuality, and when they are found I always want to talk to them. I suppose, Mr. Matlack, that your life is one long assertion of individuality?”
“What, ma’am?” asked the guide.
“I mean,” said she, “that when you are out alone in the wild forest, holding in your hand the weapon which decides the question of life or death for any living creature over whom you may choose to exercise your jurisdiction, absolutely independent of every social trammel, every bond of conventionalism, you must feel that you are a predominant whole and not a mere integral part.”
“Well,” said Matlack, speaking slowly, “I may have had them feelin’s, but if I did they must have struck in, and not come out on the skin, like measles, where I could see ’em.”
“Corona,” said her brother, in a peevish undertone, “what is the good of all that? You’re wasting your words on such a man.”
His sister turned a mild steady gaze upon him. “I don’t know any man but you,” she said, “on whom I waste my words.”
“Is assertin’ like persistin’?” inquired Mrs. Perkenpine at this point.
“The two actions are somewhat alike,” said Corona.
