"That Bartley's daughter!" said he to Julia. "Ay, when roses spring from dunghills, and eagles are born of sparrow-hawks. Brave girl!—brave girl!"
"Oh, uncle," said Julia, "I am so glad you appreciate her!"
"Appreciate her!" said the Colonel; "what should I be worth if I did not? Why, these are the women that win Waterloo in the persons of their sons. That girl could never breed a coward nor a cheat." Then his incisive voice mellowed suddenly. "Poor young thing," said he, with manly emotion, "I saw her come out of that room pale as death to do another woman justice. She's no fool, though that ruffian called her one. She knew what she was doing, yet for all her woman's heart she faced disgrace as unflinchingly as if it was, only death. It was a great action, a noble action, a just action, and a manly action, but done like a very woman. Where the two sexes meet like that in one brave deed it's grand. I declare it warms an old soldier's heart, and makes him thank God there are a few creatures in the world that do humanity honor."
As the Colonel was a man that stuck to a topic when he got upon it, this was the main of his talk all the way to Clifford Hall. He even remarked to his niece that, so far as his observations of the sex extended, great love of justice was not the leading feature of the female mind; other virtues he ventured to think were more prominent.
"So everybody says," was Julia's admission.
"Everybody is right for once," said the Colonel.
They entered the house together, and Miss Clifford went up to her room; there she put on a new bonnet and a lovely shawl, recently imported from Paris. Who could this be for? She sauntered upon the lawn till she found herself somehow near the outward boundary, where there was a gate leading into the Park. As she walked to and fro by this gate she observed, out of the tail of her eye of course, the figure of a devoted lover creeping toward her. Whether this took her by surprise, or whether the lovely creature was playing the part of a beautiful striped spider waiting for her fly, the reader must judge for himself.
Percy came to the gate; she walked past him twice, coming and going with her eyes fixed upon vacancy. She passed him a third time. He murmured in a pleading voice,
"Julia!"
She neither saw nor heard, so attractive had the distant horizon become.