“Gideon, Gideon!” said his uncle.
“O, it’s all right, uncle, when we’re going to be married so soon,” said Gideon. “You know you said so yourself in the houseboat.”
“Did I?” said Uncle Ned; “I am certain I said no such thing.”
“Appeal to him, tell him he did, get on his soft side,” cried Gideon. “He’s a real brick if you get on his soft side.”
“Dear Mr. Bloomfield,” said Julia, “I know Gideon will be such a very good boy, and he has promised me to do such a lot of law, and I will see that he does too. And you know it is so very steadying to young men, everybody admits that; though, of course, I know I have no money, Mr. Bloomfield,” she added.
“My dear young lady, as this rapscallion told you to-day on the boat, Uncle Ned has plenty,” said the Squirradical, “and I can never forget that you have been shamefully defrauded. So as there’s nobody looking, you had better give your Uncle Ned a kiss. There, you rogue,” resumed Mr. Bloomfield, when the ceremony had been daintily performed, “this very pretty young lady is yours, and a vast deal more than you deserve. But now, let us get back to the houseboat, get up steam on the launch, and away back to town.”
“That’s the thing!” cried Gideon; “and to-morrow there will be no houseboat, and no Jimson, and no carrier’s cart, and no piano; and when Harker awakes on the ditch-side, he may tell himself the whole affair has been a dream.”
“Aha!” said Uncle Ned, “but there’s another man who will have a different awakening. That fellow in the cart will find he has been too clever by half.”
“Uncle Ned and Julia,” said Gideon, “I am as happy as the King of Tartary, my heart is like a threepenny-bit, my heels are like feathers; I am out of all my troubles, Julia’s hand is in mine. Is this a time for anything but handsome sentiments? Why, there’s not room in me for anything that’s not angelic! And when I think of that poor unhappy devil in the cart, I stand here in the night and cry with a single heart—God help him!”
“Amen,” said Uncle Ned.