d 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 three soft inflections in her
voice, which for some absurd reason or other drew him to her side and so
bewitched him that he told her half his secrets and looked into her eyes
all that he could not tell, in less time than it would have takes him
to discuss the champion paper of the last Quarterly with the admirable
"Portia." Heu, quanto minus! How much more was that lost image to him
than all it left on earth!

The study of love is very much l