CHAPTER XXXVII. — ABEL NEWT, vice SLIGO MOULTRIE REMOVED.
The Plumers were at Bunker’s. The gay, good-hearted Grace, full of fun and flirtation, vowed that New York was life, and all the rest of the world death.
“You do not compliment the South very much,” said Sligo Moultrie, smiling.
“Oh no! The South is home, and we don’t compliment relations, you know,” returned Miss Grace.
“Yes, thank Heaven! the South is home, Miss Grace. New York is like a foreign city. The tumult is fearful; yet it is only a sea-port after all. It has no metropolitan repose. It never can have. It is a trading town.”
“Then I like trading towns, if that is it,” returned Miss Grace, looking out into the bustling street.
Mr. Moultrie smiled—a quiet, refined, intelligent, and accomplished smile.
He smiled confidently. Not offensively, but with that half-shy sense of superiority which gave the high grace of self-possession to his manner—a languid repose which pervaded his whole character. The symmetry of his person, the careless ease of his carriage, a sweet voice, a handsome face, were valuable allies of his intellectual accomplishments; and when all the forces were deployed they made Sligo Moultrie very fascinating. He was not audacious nor brilliant. It was a passive, not an active nature. He was not rich, although Mrs. Boniface Newt had a vague idea that every Southern youth was ex-officio a Croesus. Scion of a fine old family, like the Newts, and Whitloes, and Octoynes of New York, Mr. Sligo Moultrie, born to be a gentleman, but born poor, was resolved to maintain his state.