“I guess we will,” said she. “But, Mr. Green, don’t you remember that I once told you if you’d take me out, I’d be sure to come home with you? You never tried me, and I take it bad of you.” So encouraged I made an engagement with her, and in two or three days’ time from that I had her beside me in my sleigh on the same road.
By this time I had quite become a convert to the general opinion, and was ready to confess in any presence, that Miss Gledd was a beauty. As I started with her out of the city warmly enveloped in buffalo furs, I could not but think how nice it would be to drive on and on, so that nobody should ever catch us. There was a sense of companionship about her in which no woman that I have ever known excelled her. She had a way of adapting herself to the friend of the moment which was beyond anything winning. Her voice was decidedly very pleasant; and as to that nasal twang I am not sure that I was ever right about it. I wasn’t in love with her myself, and didn’t want to fall in love with her. But I felt that I should have liked to cross the Rocky Mountains with her, over to the Pacific, and to have come home round by California, Peru, and the Pampas. And for such a journey I should not at all have desired to hamper the party with the society either of Hannibal Hoskins or of Mr. Pryor! “I hope you feel that you’re having your revenge,” said she.
“But I don’t mean to upset you.”
“I almost wish you would, so as to make it even. And my poor friend Mr. Hoskins would feel himself so satisfied. He says you Englishmen are conceited about your driving.”
“No doubt, he thinks we are conceited about everything.”
“So you are, and so you should be. Poor Hannibal! He is wild with despair because——”
“Because what?”
“Oh, never mind. He is an excellent fellow, but I know you hate him.”
“Indeed, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do; and so does Mr. Pryor. But he is so good! You can’t either understand or appreciate the kind of goodness which our young men have. Because he pulls his hat about, and can’t wear his gloves without looking stiff, you won’t remember that out of his hard earnings he gives his mother and sisters everything that they want.”