dging by the person who sat nearest to Miss Emily Owen in the
faintly-lighted parlor, at about half past eight in the evening, the
Judge's praises of Col. Bancker and animadversions of Frank Wallace had
not been without their effect on the young girl. Both the rival suitors
were present, and so was Aunt Martha; but Frank Wallace made a somewhat
dim and undefined picture as he sat near one of the front windows,
apparently observing the boys deep in the mysteries of fire-crackers and
torpedoes; while the Colonel was in altogether a better light as he sat
near Emily and nearly under the half-lighted chandelier. Emily was
indulging in the peculiarly American vice of rolling backward and
forward in a rocking-chair; the Colonel had one leg over the other and
was drumming with the opened blade of his penknife on the cover of the
book he held in his hand; and Aunt Martha was ruining what eyes she had
left, by some kind of crochet-work in cotton that may possibly have been
a "tidy."

Frank and the Colonel had come in very nearly together, yet _not_
together, about half an hour before. Some little conversation had
ensued, but very little, for the rivals instinctively hated each other,
and Wallace could not manage to string ten words in his rival's presence
without throwing hits at him in a manner decidedly improper. Perhaps
Emily had taken the Colonel's part a little, spite of her aversion to
him; and the result was that Master Frank had fallen partially into the
sulks and gone off to the end of the room--quite as far as he intended
to go at that juncture, however.

The young man might be pardoned if he felt for the moment a little
vexed. Though not forbidden the house of Judge Owen, and treated with
cold politeness when he entered it (of course with _one_ exception)--he
knew very well that he was an object of dislike to the portly Judge, and
he always endeavored so to time his visits that he might avoid that
parental potentate. That afternoon he had accidentally seen the Judge
(who had anticipated his summer vacation) step on board the Hudson River
cars, with Mrs. Owen, for a day or two somewhere up the Hudson; and he
had very naturally made his calculations upon a quiet evening with
Emily. And now to find the Colonel dividing the opportunity with
him--nay more, to find Emily even siding a little with the valorous
Colonel!--it _was_ too bad, was it not?

Perhaps the young lover would not have fallen into his partial sulks
qui