[O Hiram! how could that glib and ready lie come so aptly to your lips? Your father never said a word to you on the subject. It is doubtful if he knew you were going to Burnsville at all, and he never had seen Mr. Burns in his life. How carefully, Hiram, you calculated before you resolved on this delicate method to secure your object! The risk of the falsity of the whole ever being discovered—that was very remote, and amounted to little. What you were about to say would injure no one—wrong no one. If not true, it might well be true. Oh! but Hiram, do you not see you are permitting an element of falsehood to creep in and leaven your whole nature? You are exhibiting an utter disregard of circumstances in your determination to carry your point. Heretofore you have looked to but one end—self; but you have committed no overt act. Have a care, Hiram Meeker; Satan is gaining on you.]
Mr. Burns had not been favorably impressed, at first sight, with his visitor. Magnetically he was repelled by him. He was too just a man to allow this to influence him, by word or manner. He permitted Hiram to accompany him to the mill and return with him.
During this time, the latter had learned something of his man. He saw quickly enough that he had failed favorably to impress Mr. Burns. Determining not to lose the day, he assumed an entire ingenuousness of character, coupled with much simplicity and earnestness. He appealed to the certificates of his minister and the deacons, as if these would be sure to settle the question irrespective of Mr. Burns's wants; and at last the lie slipped from his mouth, in appearance as innocently as truth from the lips of an angel.
At the mention of Sudbury and the time when he was a young man, Hiram, who watched narrowly, thought he could perceive a slight quickening in the eye of Mr. Burns—nothing more.
His only reply, however, to the appeal, was to ask:
'How old are you?'
'Nineteen,' said Hiram softly. (He would be twenty the following week, but he did not say so.)
'Only nineteen!' exclaimed Mr. Burns, 'I took you for five-and-twenty.'
'It is very singular,' replied Hiram mournfully; 'I am not aware that persons generally think me older than I am.'
'Oh! I presume not; and now I look closer, I do not think you do appear more than nineteen.'