in passing, upon the bed-chamber of Adele. There were all the delicate
fixtures, in which she had taken such a motherly pride,--the spotless
curtains, the cherished vases, and certain toilette adornments,--her
gifts,--by each one of which she had hoped to win a point in the
accomplishment of her ambitious project. In the flush of her
disappointment she could almost have torn down the neatly adjusted
drapery, and put to confusion this triumph of her housewifely skill. But
cooler thoughts succeeded; and, passing on into her own chamber, she
threw herself into her familiar rocking-chair and entered upon a long
train of reflections, whose result will very likely have their bearing
upon the development of our story.

XLIV.

About this time, Phil Elderkin had come back from his trip to the West
Indies,--not a little bronzed by the fierce suns he had met there, but
stalwart as ever, with his old free, frank manner, to which he had
superadded a little of that easy confidence and self-poise which come of
wide intercourse with the world. All the village greeted him kindly; for
there was not a man or a woman in it who bore Phil Elderkin a
grudge,--unless it may have been the schoolmaster, who, knowing what a
dullard Phil had been at his books, had to bear some measure of the
reproach which belonged to his slow progress. But there are some young
gentlemen (not, however, so many as dull fellows are apt to think) who
ripen best by a reading of the world, instead of books; and Phil
Elderkin was eminently one of them. The old Squire took a pride he had
never anticipated in walking down the street arm in arm with his
stalwart son, (whose support, indeed, the old gentleman was beginning to
need,) and in watching the admiring glances of the passers-by, and of
such old cronies as stopped to shake hands and pass a word or two with
the Squire's youngest boy. There is this pleasant feature about such
quiet, out-of-the-way New England towns, (or was twenty-five years
since,) that the old people never forget to feel a pride in the young
men, who, having gone out from their borders to try their fortunes, win
any measure of success. Of course they are apt to attribute it, with a
pleasant vanity, to their own good advice or example; but this by no
means detracts from the cordiality of their praises. Phil won all
this,--since it was hinted, on the best possible authority, that he had
tried certain business chances on his own account in the West