“It is easy to tell what a favourite Jabez must be in the warehouse, by the uproar. The last outcome, I remember, was quite tame beside this.”
“Well, Augusta,” answered Ellen, “I believe he deserves it. I know my father thinks there is not such another young man as Mr. Clegg in all Manchester.”
“Yes, he’s very kind, and obliging, and clever, and perserving, and all that, and I like him very well; but then you know, Ellen, he is not a gentleman, and he is not handsome by any means,” responded Augusta, in quite a patronising tone.
Ellen looked grave.
“He is all that is good and noble, if he was not born a gentleman; and I think him handsome. He has a frank, open, expressive countenance, and a good figure, and good manners, and what more would you have?”
Augusta turned her head sharply, and looked up archly in her cousin’s face.
“It’s well Captain Travis does not hear you, Ellen, or he might be jealous of the prentice-knight,” she said, banteringly.
Ellen coloured painfully.
“When shall I make you understand that Mr. Travis is nothing to me?” asked she.
“When my cousin makes me understand that she is nothing to Mr. Travis,” was the quick reply, as Jabez was being borne past for the last time, and the young ladies once more waved their handkerchiefs in salutation.