“Where did you meet her?” Mr. Bradshaw asked, with eager interest.
“I met her in the Valley of the Shadow of Death,” Clement answered, very solemnly.—“I leave this place to-morrow morning. Have you any commands for the city?”
“Knows how to shut a fellow up pretty well for a young one, doesn't he?” Mr. Bradshaw thought to himself.
“Thank you, no,” he answered, recovering himself. “Rather a melancholy place to make acquaintance in, I should think, that Valley you spoke of. I should like to know about it.”
Mr. Clement had the power of looking steadily into another person's eyes in a way that was by no means encouraging to curiosity or favorable to the process of cross-examination. Mr. Bradshaw was not disposed to press his question in the face of the calm, repressive look the young man gave him.
“If he was n't bagged, I shouldn't like the shape of things any too well,” he said to himself.
The conversation between Mr. Clement Lindsay and Miss Susan Posey, as they walked home together, was not very brilliant. “I am going to-morrow morning,” he said, “and I must bid you good-by tonight.” Perhaps it is as well to leave two lovers to themselves, under these circumstances.
Before he went he spoke to his worthy host, whose moderate demands he had to satisfy, and with whom he wished to exchange a few words.
“And by the way, Deacon, I have no use for this book, and as it is in a good type, perhaps you would like it. Your favorite, Scott, and one of his greatest works. I have another edition of it at home, and don't care for this volume.”
“Thank you, thank you, Mr. Lindsay, much obleeged. I shall read that copy for your sake, the best of books next to the Bible itself.”