“You are right,” replied the mother; “I have known her to bite her lips till the blood came, in her effort to keep from crying.”
“Such is her individuality,” continued Vance. “I doubt if circumstances of education could do much to misshape her moral being.”
“Ah! that is a fearful consideration,” said the lady; “we cannot say how far the best of us would have been perverted if our early training had been unpropitious.”
“I knew your father, Mrs. Berwick. He found me, a stranger stricken down by fever, forsaken and untended, in a miserable shanty called a tavern, in Southern Illinois, in the sickly season. He devoted himself to me till I was convalescent. I shall never forget his kindness. Will you allow mg to look at that little seal on your watch-chain? It ought to bear the letters ‘W. C. to R. A.’ Thank you. Yes, there they are! I sent him the seal as a memento. The cutting is my own.”
“I shall regard it with a new interest,” said Mrs. Berwick, as she took it back.
Mr. Onslow here appeared and bade the party good morning.
“I feel that I am among friends,” said Vance. “I last night promised Mr. Onslow a story. Did you ever hear of the redoubtable Gashface, Mr. Berwick?”
“Yes, and I warn you, sir, that I am quite enough of an Abolitionist to hold his memory in a sort of respect.”
“Bold words to utter on the Southern Mississippi! But do not be under concern: I myself am Gashface. Yes. The report of his being killed is a lie. Are you in a mood to hear his story, Mrs. Berwick?”
“I shall esteem it a privilege, sir.”