They had moved along as they were talking, and the merchant’s warehouse was close at hand. He felt that he couldn’t well refuse to ask Jack to come in with him, but if he could he would have avoided doing so.
He had a hearty dread of the young bloods and bucks of the time, and he would not, if possible, have allowed his precious Dorothy to make the acquaintance of any of them.
But then, this was an exceptional case, he said to himself. The young man had saved his life, and, in doing so, had met with a serious injury. And it would not have been gracious if, meeting him accidentally so close to his own house, he had not asked him in.
Jack, quite innocent of the old gentleman’s thoughts, and learning them only after from the little Quakeress, gladly accepted the invitation.
He spent an hour with them that evening, and had the satisfaction of persuading himself that he was not quite unacceptable to the maiden. He did not fail to perceive that the old gentleman found his company somewhat irksome, but his motto always was, “Make hay while the sun shines,” and he saw it shining out of the maiden’s eyes.
When he had at last to leave, he did so, assuring the old gentleman that it would give him the greatest pleasure to call again, and spoke quite like one who was yielding to an invitation.
But the old gentleman had given no invitation, and when Jack was gone he warned his daughter of the danger of having any connection with gentlemen of Jack’s stamp.
It is not necessary to go over the conversation between father and daughter, which she subsequently retailed to Jack, and which he repeated to me. Enough to say, that Jack resolved on calling, and that the old gentleman finally received him with such coldness, and always alone, that Jack, except for the glance of the young girl’s eye through the partially drawn curtain of the glass door that separated the living-room from the shop and counting house, might as well have met him in the street. He saw there was little use of continuing visits of this kind.
Whenever Jack entered the shop, he found the fair Dorothy, acting under her father’s orders, escaping from it. He continued, nevertheless, to correspond with her through the aid of an old domestic, who quickly discovered the character of the relation between Jack and her young mistress, and whose almost withered heart had a green spot in it, in which bloomed the flower of sympathy with the passion of youthful lovers.