for her
dower and the Cid for her grandpapa. He also asked a great deal of
advice, such as inexperienced young persons are in need of, and
listened to it with great 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 bullet-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 settled it beyond doubt 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. The considerate young man had remembered this,
too, and brought home for Sophy some handkerchiefs of rainbow hue,
which had been strangely overlooked till now, at the bottom of one of
his trunks. Old Sophy took his gifts, but kept her black eyes open
and watched every movement of the young people all the more closely.
It was through her