"Mr. Gregory—I think your course toward Mr. Hunting to-day was not only unjust, but even ungentlemanly. You cannot hurt his feelings without wounding mine. I cannot help feeling that your hostility is both 'unreasonable and implacable.' In sadness and disappointment, "Annie Walton."
"There," she said, "read that, and please mail it for me."
"That's my noble Annie," he said, gratefully. "Now you prove your love anew, and show you will not stand quietly by and see me insulted."
"You may rest assured I will not," she said, promptly; adding very sadly after a moment, "I cannot understand how Mr. Gregory, with all his good qualities, can act so."
"You do not know him so well as I do," said Hunting; "and yet even I feel grateful to him for his services to you, and would show it if he would treat me decently."
"He shall treat you decently, and politely too, if he wishes to keep my favor," said she, hotly.
But the next day, when she thought it all over quietly, she regretted that she had written so harshly. "My words will not help my Bible's influence," she thought in self-reproach, "and only when he becomes a Christian will he show a different disposition."
Her regret would have been still deeper, if she had known that Hunting had sent her note with one from himself to this effect:
"You perceive from the inclosed that you cannot insult me as you did yesterday and still retain the favor of one whose esteem you value too highly perhaps. My only regret is that you were not a witness to the words and manner which accompanied the act of writing."
Still stronger would have been her indignation had she known that Hunting had greatly exaggerated his insult. Gregory had merely acted as if unconscious of his presence, and there had been no look of scorn.