'At any rate, his spirit is not broken. I could see his eye light up after I had talked a little while, and he fell into his natural tone again. He would not try to put out his hand to me when he came down; but when I went away, he put it through and we had a good hearty shake. Somehow it made one feel quite small.'
Ethel could have pledged herself for the soundness of Tom's nature after those words; but all she did was in an unwonted tone to utter the unwonted exclamation—'Dear Tom.'
'If my father does not come up, I shall see him once more before he leaves Pentonville,' added Tom; 'and so you must mind and let me know all about his people in America. I found he had no notion of the row that is beginning there, so I said not a word of it. But what is all this about going to Indiana?'
'They are going at the end of April to settle in a place called Massissauga, where Henry is to farm till practice comes to him. It is towards the north of the State, in the county of Pulaski.'
'Ay, in one of the pestilential swamps that run up out of Lake Michigan. All the fertile ground there breeds as many fevers and agues as it does stalks of corn.'
'Indeed! how did you hear that?'
'I looked up the place after Leonard told me of it. It is as unlucky a location as the ill luck of that fellow Henry could have pitched on. Some friend Leonard spoke of—a Yankee, I suppose, meaning to make a prey of them.'
'The father of their young lady friend at the boarding-house.'
'Oh! a Yankee edition of Mrs. Pugh!'
'And the worst of it is that this is to be done with poor Averil's fortune. She has written to Mr. Bramshaw to sell out for her, and send her the amount, and he is terribly vexed; but she is of age, and there are no trustees nor any one to stop it.'