"I will be cautious; but she must not be sacrificed to the artful wiles of unprincipled tricksters while I have an trinity. Come what may, I must and will speak out!" Phillip Lawson thus resolved, with a sense of relief. He knew now how to act, and his mind was clear, calmly awaiting the hour to carry his resolutions into effect. But how often do a few careless words change the whole course of action which hours of thought had premeditated.
Phillip Lawson's high-toned resolutions by these means were scattered to the winds, and he turned once more to the lofty aspirations of his intellectual nature for refuge.
Let us explain:
It is the hour of twilight, and the streets have an air of desertion. The people of fashion that are daily to be seen on King and Prince William streets have retired within their palatial residences, and none are abroad except an occasional man of business, with wearied and abstracted air, soon to find rest in the bosom of his family. Suddenly a handsome turnout claims our attention, and instantly the driver assists a lady to alight. She is dressed in costly furs and velvet, and her haughty mien shows that her associations and preferences are with the patrician side of nature.
"Will you come in, too, Rania? I need not ask Marguerite, lest she might miss a chance of seeing 'Farmer Phil' and lose effervescence of the hayseed. Do you know he is always associated, in my mind, with homespun and hayseed."
Evelyn Verne laughed at the cleverness of her remark, and adjusting her mantle entered a publisher's establishment, followed by the said Rania Lister.
"Homespun and hayseed," muttered a muffled figure as he stood in the recess of a doorway, from which situation he could see each occupant of the sleigh and hear every syllable that was uttered.
"Homespun and hayseed! ah! my proud beauty, the effervescence of hayseed is less noxious than the stench odors inhaled from dissipation and vice, notwithstanding the fact that they are perfumed over with all the garish compliments and conventional gallantries that society demands."
Phillip Lawson had a highly-wrought imaginative temperament. He had not heard more than those few words, but his mind was quick to take in the whole situation. He could hear the lengthy speeches of ridicule and sarcasm aimed at him from every possible standpoint, and he felt the more determined to live down the scathing thoughts. The man did not hear the reply by Marguerite Verne to her arrogant sister, but he calmly and slowly repeated the words—"God bless you, noble girl!" He still had faith in the purity of her mind, and would have given much to be able to convince her of the fact.
It did, indeed, seem a coincidence that the moment Phillip Lawson uttered the words above quoted, an almost perfect repetition found their way into Marguerite's heart, and left a deep impression which all the taunts of the subtle Evelyn could not shake off. Nor did it seem strange to her when she fancied that a figure, on the opposite side of the street, hurrying along at a rapid pace could be none other than the subject of her thoughts.