"Well, but, my dear fellow, how can your extra fastidious moral notions stand the idea of her practising this system of deception?"
"Why, of course, it isn't a thing to my taste; but then, like the old parson, if I love the 'little sinner,' what am I to do? I suppose you think it a lover's paradox; yet I assure you, though she deceives, she is not deceitful; though she acts selfishly, she is not selfish. The fact is, the child has grown up, motherless and an heiress, among servants. She has, I believe, a sort of an aunt, or some such relative, who nominally represents the head of the family to the eye of the world. But I fancy little madam has had full sway. Then she has been to a fashionable New York boarding-school, and that has developed the talent of shirking lessons, and evading rules, with a taste for sidewalk flirtation. These are all the attainments that I ever heard of being got at a fashionable boarding-school, unless it be a hatred of books, and a general dread of literary culture."
"And her estates are"—
"Nothing very considerable. Managed nominally by an old uncle of hers; really by a very clever quadroon servant, who was left her by her father, and who has received an education, and has talents very superior to what are common to those in his class. He is, in fact, the overseer of her plantation, and I believe the most loyal, devoted creature breathing."
"Clayton," said his companion, "this affair might not be much to one who takes the world as I do, but for you it may be a little too serious. Don't get in beyond your depth."
"You are too late, Russel, for that—I am in."
"Well, then, good luck to you, my dear fellow! And now, as we are about it, I may as well tell you that I'm in for it, too. I suppose you have heard of Miss Benoir, of Baltimore. Well, she is my fate."
"And are you really engaged?"
"All signed and sealed, and to be delivered next Christmas."
"Let's hear about her."