evinced a profound interest in the
family history, insisted on having the details of its early alliances,
and professed a great pride in it, which he had inherited from his
father, who, though he had allied himself with the daughter of an alien
race, had yet chosen one with the real azure blood in her veins, as
proud as if she had Castile and Aragon for her dower and the Cid for her
grand-papa. He also asked a great deal of advice, such as inexperienced
young persons are in need of, and listened to it with due reverence.

It is not very strange that uncle Dudley took a kinder view of his
nephew than the Judge, who thought he could read a questionable history
in his face,--or the old Doctor, who knew men's temperaments and
organizations pretty well, and had his prejudices about races, and could
tell an old sword-cut and a ballet-mark in two seconds from a scar got
by falling against the fender, or a mark left by king's evil. He could
not be expected to share our own prejudices; for he had heard nothing
of the wild youth's adventures, or his scamper over the Pampas at short
notice. So, then, "Richard Venner, Esquire, guest of Dudley Venner,
Esquire, at his elegant mansion," prolonged his visit until his presence
became something like a matter of habit, and the neighbors began to
think that the fine old house would be illuminated before long for a
grand marriage.

He had done pretty well with the father: the next thing was to gain over
the nurse. Old Sophy was as cunning as a red fox or a gray woodchuck.
She had nothing in the world to do but to watch Elsie; she had nothing
to care for but this girl and her father. She had never liked Dick too
well; for he used to make faces at her and tease her when he was a boy,
and now he was a man there was something about him--she could not tell
what--that made her suspicious of him. It was no small matter to get her
over to his side.

The jet-black Africans know that gold never looks so well as on the foil
of their dark skins. Dick found in his trunk a string of gold beads,
such as are manufactured in some of our cities, which he had brought
from the gold region of Chili,--so he said,--for the express purpose of
giving them to old Sophy. These Africans, too, have a perfect passion
for gay-colored clothing; being condemned by Nature, as it were, to
a perpetual mourning-suit, they love to enliven it with all sorts of
variegated stuffs of sprightly patterns, aflame with red and yellow