“It would appear that these fellows in the North are growing dangerous,” said Stapylton.
“'T is little matter to us,” said M'Cormick, sulkily. “I'd care more about a blight in the potatoes than for all the politics in Europe.”
“A genuine philosopher! How snug you are here, to be sure! A man in a pleasant nook like this can well afford to smile at the busy ambitions of the outer world. I take it you are about the very happiest fellow I know?”
“Maybe I am, maybe I'm not,” said he, peevishly.
“This spot only wants what I hinted to you t'other evening, to be perfection.”
“Ay!” said the other, dryly.
“And you agree with me heartily, if you had the candor to say it. Come, out with it, man, at once. I saw your gardener this morning with a great basketful of greenery, and a large bouquet on the top of it,—are not these significant signs of a projected campaign? You are wrong, Major, upon my life you are wrong, not to be frank with me. I could, by a strange hazard, as the newspapers say, 'tell you something to your advantage.'”
“About what?”
“About the very matter you were thinking of as I drove up. Come, I will be more generous than you deserve.” And, laying his arm on M'Cormick's shoulder, he halt whispered in his ear; “It is a good thing,—a deuced good thing! and I promise you, if I were a marrying man, you 'd have a competitor. I won't say she 'll have one of the great fortunes people rave about, but it will be considerable,—very considerable.”
“How do you know, or what do you know?”