, who and what am I? Why the devil
shouldn't they snub me one day and pat me on the head the next? And
I ought to be glad to be kicked, and glad to be thanked for being
kicked--only I'm not---though I don't know why! Well, this is the last
of it; in my own good time--or somebody's time, good or bad--I will
walk in upon my Lord Judge, my discriminating Lady the Mother, and
the Lady Julia, and hear them say their pieces without danger of
misapprehension." And his eye fell again on the Judge's postscript.
Reads:

"Before I called at your mother's on that morning, I set apart the
chestnut 'Silver-tail,' well caparisoned, as your property. I
thought it a fitting way in which one gentleman might indicate his
appreciation of another. I knew you would appreciate him; I hoped he
would be useful to you. He is your property, whether you will or no,
and will be held subject to your order, and the fact that he is yours
will not diminish the care he will receive. May I know your pleasure
in reference to him?

"E.M."

This found the weak place, or one of the weak places, in Bart's
nature. The harshness and bitterness of his feelings melted out of his
heart, and left him to answer his letters in a spirit quite changed
from that which had just possessed him.

To Julia he wrote:

"JEFFERSON, April 11, 1838.

"Miss JULIA MARKHAM:

"Yours has just reached me. I am so little used to expressions of
kindness that yours seem to mock me like irony. You did not choose to
become involved in discomfort and danger, nor were you left to elect
who should aid you, and I can endure the reflection that you might
prefer to thank some other.

"If your sense of obligation is unpleasant, there is one consideration
that may diminish it. A man of spirit, whose folly had placed him
in the position I occupied towards you, would have eagerly sought an
opportunity to render you any service, and would have done his poor
best in your behalf. When it was accomplished he would not have been
covetous of thanks, and might hope that it would be taken as some
recompense for the past, and only ask to forget and be forgotten. No
matter; so little that is pleasant has happened to me, that you surely
can permit me to enjoy the full luxury of having saved you without
having that diminished by the receipt of anything, in any form, from
anybody, by reason of it. It is in your power to explain one thing
to your father; by which he will see that I must be left to my o