CHAPTER IV.
“I WOULD STAKE MY FORTUNE.”
When Gerald and Allison met at the breakfast-table the next morning the fond glances of the one and the shy blushes of the other warned Mr. Brewster that Cupid was surely in ambush, and it would behoove him to be keenly on the alert. It was his custom to attend church every Sabbath morning, and Allison always accompanied him; accordingly, this morning, notwithstanding the excitement of the previous day, was no exception to his rule.
He courteously invited Gerald to accompany him, but the young man excused himself, as he wished to get back to the city by the next train.
Mr. Brewster offered to drop him at the station, as it lay on their way to church, and he experienced a sense of intense relief when the young man sprang from the carriage, just in season to board the train.
Not that he was not fond of Gerald for his faithfulness to him and his many noble qualities, while his heroism of the previous day had aroused his deepest gratitude, and increased his admiration for him a hundredfold. Had he been his own son, he would have gloried in him, or had he been the son of a man in his own sphere of life, he would have eagerly welcomed him as a suitor for his daughter’s hand. But pride, that relentless tyrant of the human heart, would never swerve out of the beaten track for a struggling clerk, even though he were of irreproachable morals or noblest aspirations.
One day, shortly after the departure of his family for Newport, Mr. Brewster, on entering his office, laid a tiny package upon Gerald’s desk.
“Something that Mrs. Manning commissioned me to hand to you,” he remarked.