"Yes, Vernon, all the hard work we did up the river shall not be in vain. I shall win the prize!" and Maxwell rubbed his hands at the pleasant anticipation.
"Wish you joy, Max! But you don't mean to marry the girl?"
"Certainly."
"What! a quadroon?"
"Pshaw! that story is all blown through. Her old uncle, up the river, got up that abstraction, so as to finger her property," said Maxwell, forgetting, in his candor, the scruples which his companion had expressed on a former occasion with relation to persecuting a white woman,—scruples which Vernon did not seem disposed to press upon the attorney's memory.
"You helped him through with his scheme?" answered Vernon, with a bold, careless air.
"'Pon honor, I had nothing to do with it. Old Jaspar did it all himself," replied Maxwell, with an oath.
"Looks a little like you, though," said Vernon, with a nonchalance which provoked Maxwell, whose temper was not of the mildest tone.
"Nevertheless, it is none of mine, though the plan was a creditable one. But it has brought old Jaspar into a wasp's nest."
"How's that?"