Chapman owned, he was not poor, and occupied with his spinster sister, who was almost as withered as himself, a house well down in the business section of the city. He could not be induced to live in the more desirable suburbs. They were too far from the temple of his chiefest idol, the house of J. Dunlap.
“Jack Dunlap sails as master of our ship ‘Adams’ day after tomorrow,” suggested Chapman meditatively, as he sipped his tea and glanced across the table at the dry, almost fossilized, prim, starchy, old lady seated opposite him in his comfortable dining room that evening.
“Impossible, David, the boy has only just arrived.”
And the little old lady seemed to pick at the words as she uttered them much as a sparrow does at crumbs of bread.
“It is not impossible for it is a fact,” replied her brother dryly.
“What is the reason for his sudden departure? Did the house order him to sea again?” pecked out the sister.
“No, that is the strange part of the affair. Jack himself especially urged his appointment to the ship sailing day after tomorrow.”
“Then it is to get away from Boston before Lucy is married. I believe he is in love with her and can’t bear to see her marry Burton.”
Oh! boastful man, with all your assumed superiority in the realm of reason and your deductive theories and synthetical systems for forming correct conclusions. You are but a tyro, a mere infant in that great field of feeling where love is crowned king. The most withered, stale, neglected being in whose breast beats a woman’s heart, by that mysterious and sympathetic something called intuition can lead you like the child that you are in this, woman’s own province.