“You actually, on account of the common deed you performed, have inflated yourself with a monstrous notion that you might aspire to the hand of a young lady of birth and wealth. You have, perhaps, been led to nurse this ridiculous conception, because Miss Wilton, with the true and refined courtesy of a well-bred lady, has extended towards you a kindness of manner she would have displayed to the very fireman you forestalled, if he had been the person who rescued her from the peril she was in.”
“Have you finished?” cried Hal, impatiently.
“When I have told you to abandon for ever the wild and preposterous idea which seems to have taken possession of you, and to abstain from further visits to the house of Mr. Wilton, under the risk of my resentment, and perhaps an ignominious punishment, I have ended.”
“My reply is, sir,” returned Hal, with a swelling breast, and a sensation upon his forehead, like a burning band, “that I wholly deny your right to interfere either in Mr. Wilton’s or my affairs. I have further to inform you, that I am master of my actions, and that I intend to remain so; I conclude, sir, by telling you, in full explanation of the estimation in which I hold your resentment, that should you dare, in my hearing, speak of Miss Wilton as but now you have done, or should attempt to renew this conversation with me, I will treat you as I would a snarling, troublesome, officious hound! Stand out of my path!”
Hal placed his open hand on the breast of Colonel Mires, and thrust him back. He strode with a firm but dignified step from the spot.
“Scoundrel!” yelled Mires; “I will horsewhip you for this indignity.”
“We shall meet when you have a horsewhip,” answered Hal, scornfully. “Spare your promises until then.”
With rage and fury swelling his frame, and forming a hundred schemes of a deadly revenge, the foiled Colonel hastened in the opposite direction to that Hal had taken.
“And this dark-skinned villain hopes to take to his arms the fairest, brightest piece of Nature’s handicraft,” Hal muttered, as he pursued his way homeward. “He will vex and trouble her by his detestable addresses. Oh, Flora, dearest! if I may not aspire to your hand, or hope for your love, I may, at least, pass my life in protecting you from the machinations of such villains as this. At least I shall be near you; I will watch over you, and preserve you from ill, if I may never, never shelter you from harm within these arms as my own—my own.”