"I answered it myself, ma'm, not wishing to be laughed at for my part of the affair. I declined the honor of Mr. Seneca Newcome's hand."
"Well, if the truth must be said," put in Patt, dryly, "I did the same thing, only three weeks since."
"And I so lately as last week," added Anne Marston, demurely.
I do not know that I ever saw my uncle Ro so strangely affected. While everybody around him was laughing heartily, he looked grave, not to say fierce. Then he turned suddenly to me, and said:
"We must let him be hanged, Hugh. Were he to live a thousand years he would never learn the fitness of things."
"You'll think better of this, sir, and become more merciful. The man has only nobly dared. But I confess a strong desire to ascertain if Miss Warren alone has escaped his assaults."
Mary—pretty Mary—she blushed scarlet, but shook her head, and refused to give any answer. We all saw that her feelings were not enlisted in the affair in any way; but there was evidently something of a more serious nature connected with Seneca's addresses to her than in connection with his addresses to either of the others. As I have since ascertained, he really had a sort of affection for Mary; and I have been ready to pardon him the unprincipled and impudent manner in which he cast his flies toward the other fish, in consideration of his taste in this particular. But Mary herself would tell us nothing.
"You are not to think so much of this, Mr. Littlepage," she cried, so soon as a little recovered from her confusion, "since it is only acting on the great anti-rent principle, after all. In the one case, it is only a wish to get good farms cheap—and in the other, good wives."
"In the one case, other men's farms—and in the other, other men's wives."
"Other men's wives, certainly, if wives at all," said Patt, pointedly. "There is no Mr. Seneky Newcome there."