rocal
disrespect.

"I don't quite think like you, Auntie, but that is, perhaps, because I
was at Charleston. A year at the South, and you understand them a little
differently. But no matter,--they must go back all the same. This is my
pincushion, is it?"

"Yes, and here are thread and needles. But, Rob, nonsense! I say you
will be back in a month. They will begin talking and arguing, and once
they begin that, there will be no fighting. It is like the Chinese, each
side trying to frighten the other."

"Perhaps so," said Robert, in an abstracted way. "Let us hope so, at all
events. I am sure I don't want to shoot anybody. But now I am going to
Colonel Lunt's a little while; shall I find you up when I come back?"

"Come in, any way, and tell me if you have good news."

I knew what he was going to Colonel Lunt's for. He had talked to me
about Percy, and I knew he loved her. If he had not been going away,
perhaps he would have waited longer; for Mr. Lunt (he was Percy's
cousin) had not been dead quite two years. But he said he could not go
away without telling her; and when I remembered all the readings
together, and the walkings and talkings between the two, I thought it
most likely she had already consoled herself. As I said before, I had no
very great love for her.

Not an hour, not fifteen minutes, when Robert returned. He looked paler
than before, and spoke no word, only stared into the fire. At length,
with a pitiful attempt at a smile, he said, "I'm a fool to be vexed
about it,--let her please herself!"

"It is bad news, Robert!" said I softly, laying my hand on his arm. His
hands were clenched hard together.

"Yes, there's no mistake about it. But, Auntie, tell me, am I a fool and
a jackass? didn't you think she liked me?"

"To be sure I did!" I answered decidedly.

"Well, she says she never thought of me,--never!--and she never thought
of marrying again."

The wound wouldn't bear touching,--it was too sore. So I sat silently
with him, holding his hand in mine, and looking into the fire, and in
almost as great a rage as he was. He knew I felt with him, and by and by
he turned to kiss my cheek, but still without a word.

How I wished he could have gone to the conflict with the thought of his
true love warm at his heart? Who deserved it so much? who was so brave,
so heroic, so handsome?--one in ten thousand! And here was this
dead-and-alive Percy Lunt, saying she never thought! "Pah!--just as if
girls d