g in the course of all
these years, and the traces of that ineffaceable calamity of his life
were softened and partially hidden by new growths of thought and feeling,
as the wreck left by a mountainslide is covered over by the gentle
intrusion of the soft-stemmed herbs which will prepare it for the
stronger vegetation that will bring it once more into harmony with the
peaceful slopes around it.

Perhaps Dudley Veneer had not gained so much in worldly wisdom as if he
had been more in society and less in his study. The indulgence with
which he treated his nephew was, no doubt, imprudent. A man more in the
habit of dealing with men would have been more guarded with a person with
Dick's questionable story and unquestionable physiognomy. But he was
singularly unsuspicious, and his natural kindness was an additional
motive to the wish for introducing some variety into the routine of
Elsie's life.

If Dudley Veneer did not know just what he wanted at this period of his
life, there were a great many people in the town of Rockland who thought
they did know. He had been a widower long enough, "--nigh twenty year,
wa'n't it? He'd been aout to Spraowles's party,--there wa'n't anything
to hender him why he shouldn't stir raound l'k other folks. What was the
reason he did n't go abaout to taown-meetin's 'n' Sahbath-meetin's, 'n'
lyceums, 'n' school 'xaminations, 'n' s'prise-parties, 'n' funerals,--and
other entertainments where the still-faced two-story folks were in the
habit of looking round to see if any of the mansion-house gentry were
present?--Fac' was, he was livin' too lonesome daown there at the
mansion-haouse. Why shouldn't he make up to the Jedge's daughter? She
was genteel enough for him, and--let's see, haow old was she?
Seven-'n'itwenty,--no, six-'n'-twenty,--born the same year we buried our
little Anny Marl".

There was no possible objection to this arrangement, if the parties
interested had seen fit to make it or even to think of it. But "Portia,"
as some of the mansion-house people called her, did not happen to awaken
the elective affinities of the lonely widower. He met her once in a
while, and said to himself that she was a good specimen of the grand
style of woman; and then the image came back to him of a woman not quite
so large, not quite so imperial in her port, not quite so incisive in her
speech, not quite so judicial in her opinions, but with two or three more
joints in her frame, and two or thr