Slend. A gentleman born, Master Parson, who writes himself Armigero; in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, Armigero!
Shal. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years.—Merry Wives of Windsor.
The engagement of Miss Leslie and Morton was to be kept secret till the latter's return. None knew it but Leslie and Vinal. Vinal, within a few weeks, sailed for Europe, meaning, however, to be absent only three or four months. Other motives apart, he felt, and Leslie saw, that his health, always shivering in the wind, demanded the change.
Meanwhile, Morton made the best of a six weeks' reprieve; and hampered as he was by the injunction of secrecy, and the precautions which it demanded, he crowded the short interval with half a lifetime of mixed pleasure and pain, expectation and anxiety.
It was past but too quickly; in three days more he must set sail. Walking the street in a rueful mood, he met his classmate, Chester, who, having made the tour of Europe, had lost his obsolete ways, and grown backward into a man of the present world.
"Good morning, Morton. Making calls?—I see it by your face."
"Yes; it's a thing that must be done sometimes."
"Pour prendre congé, I suppose. I hear you are off very soon."
"The day after to-morrow."
"You couldn't do a wiser thing. When a man finds himself in a scrape, he had better get out of it as soon as possible; therefore, if he finds himself born in America, he had better forswear his country."
"Patriotic sentiments those."