ring to
become the lord of the Dudley domain, then, was he?

Elsie had been reasonably careful. She had locked up her papers,
whatever they might be. There was little else that promised to reward
his curiosity, but he cast his eye on everything. There was a
clasp-Bible among her books. Dick wondered if she ever unclasped it.
There was a book of hymns; it had her name in it, and looked as if it
might have been often read;--what the _diablo_ had Elsie to do with
hymns?

Mr. Richard Venner was in an observing and analytical state of mind,
it will be noticed, or he might perhaps have been touched with the
innocent betrayals of the poor girl's chamber. Had she, after all,
some human tenderness in her heart? That was not the way he put the
question,--but whether she would take seriously to this schoolmaster,
and if she did, what would be the neatest and surest and quickest way
of putting a stop to all that nonsense. All this, however, he could
think over more safely in his own quarters. So he stole softly to the
window, and, catching the end of the leathern thong, regained his own
chamber and drew in the lasso.

It needs only a little jealousy to set a man on who is doubtful in
love or wooing, or to make him take hold of his courting in earnest.
As soon as Dick had satisfied himself that the young schoolmaster was
his rival in Elsie's good graces, his whole thoughts concentrated
themselves more than ever on accomplishing his great design of
securing her for himself. There was no time to be lost. He must come
into closer relations with her, so as to withdraw her thoughts from
this fellow, and to find out more exactly what was the state of her
affections, if she had any. So he began to court her company again, to
propose riding with her, to sing to her, to join her whenever she was
strolling about the grounds, to make himself agreeable, according to
the ordinary understanding of that phrase, in every way which seemed
to promise a chance for succeeding in that amiable effort.

The girl treated him more capriciously than ever. She would be sullen
and silent, or she would draw back fiercely at some harmless word or
gesture, or she would look at him with her eyes narrowed in such a
strange way and with such a wicked light in them that Dick swore to
himself they were too much for him, and would leave her for the
moment. Yet she tolerated him, almost as a matter of necessity, and
sometimes seemed to take a kind of pleasure in tr