"I fail to find any logic in that remark. Have you a conscience, Mr.
Morton?"
"The idea of an editor having a conscience! I doubt whether you have ever seen New York, Miss Warren, you are so unsophisticated."
"Emily, thee shouldn't be afraid of lightning when thee and Richard
Morton are so ready to flash back and forth at one another."
"My words are only heat lightning, very harmless, and Mr. Morton's partake of the aurora in character—they are cool and distant."
"I hope they are not so mysterious," I replied.
"Their cause is, quite."
"I think I understand the cause," said Mrs. Yocomb as we rose from the table; and she came and took my hand. "Richard Morton, thee has fever; thy hands are hot and thy temples are throbbing."
I saw that Miss Warren was looking at me with an expression that was full of kind, regretful interest; but with the perversity of a child that should have been shaken, I replied, recklessly:
"I've taken cold, I fear. I sat on the piazza like an owl last night, and I learned that an owl would have been equally useful there. I fear I'm going to be ill, Mrs. Yocomb, and I think I had better make a precipitate retreat to my den in New York."
"Who'll take care of thee in thy den?" she asked, with a smile that would have disarmed cynicism itself.