"She ain't goin' off in such a hurry," he muttered, drumming on the table with his fingers; then jumping up from his chair and going over to the stove, making a pretense of warming himself that he might avoid the keen scrutiny of his sister's sharp eyes; "but what's the use o' me a tryin' with all them fellers round?"
"Gote Lightcap, I'm ashamed of you!" exclaimed Rhoda Jane. "If I was a man I'd have more pluck by a long shot. 'Twouldn't be me that would let any feller get ahead where I was amind to go in and win."
"You don't know nothin' about it," he retorted, lighting a candle and stalking off to bed.
"Dear me, if he only had half my spunk!" said Rhoda Jane, looking after him with scornful eyes and a curling lip.
The wish was echoed more than once in his heart as he lay awake far into the night revolving the subject in his mind, and filled with longings, doubts and fears.
He had been so greatly rejoiced over the downfall of Ransquattle's hopes; yet after all what did it avail him while the other three, whose superiority he could not help acknowledging to himself, remained in the way? Alas, there was no great cause for exultation that one rival out of four had been removed from his path.
Still was it quite certain that they were all rivals? might it not be that Miss Chetwood or Miss Grange was the more attractive girl to one or all of them? The six were so constantly seen together, the attentions of the three young men were so equally divided between the three girls, that who could tell how they were going to pair off, if at all?
Besides there was no accounting for tastes and a lady didn't always select that one from among her admirers whom other people in general considered the most desirable match. There was yet a spark of hope for him, but—ah if he only had Rhoda Jane's pluck and energy of determination!
Near sunset of the next day a large omnibus sleigh drawn by four horses with jingling bells, and well supplied with buffalo robes and other appliances for keeping the cold at bay, went from house to house in Pleasant Plains, picking up the girls and "boys" to the number of a dozen or more—a very merry company—then glided swiftly on over the snow for some six or eight miles.