hurchill. My God! Henry's child talking of marrying this--this--this
_gentleman_. You are mad, or I am mad. Come away from him, Jacqueline!"

"I love him!" cried Jacqueline. "Oh, Uncle Dick, Uncle Dick!--"

"I loved your niece, sir, when I was a boy," said Rand; "and I love her
now that I am a man. I grant that I should not have spoken to her
to-day. I ask your pardon for what may seem to you insult and
thanklessness. But the thing itself--is it so impossible? Why is it
impossible that I should wed where I love with all my heart?" He broke a
piece of the box beside him and drew it through his hands, then threw it
away, and squarely faced the elder man. "I had my way to make in life.
Well, I am making it fast. I am making it faster, perhaps, than any
other man in the county, be he who he may! I am poor, but I am not so
poor as once I was, and I shall be richer yet. My want of wealth is
perhaps the least--why should I not say that I know it is the least
objection in your mind? My party? Well, I shall become a leader of my
party--and Republicans are white as well as Federalists. It is not
forgery or murder to detest Pitt and George the Third, or to believe in
France! Is it so poor a thing to become a leader of a party that has
gained an empire, that has put an end to the Algerine piracy, that has
reduced the debt, that has made easier every man's condition, and that
stands for freedom of thought and deed and advance of all knowledge?
Party! Now and then, even in Virginia, there is a marriage between the
parties! My family--or my lack of family? The fact that my father rolled
tobacco, and that now and then I broke a colt for you?" He smiled.
"Well, you must allow that I broke them thoroughly--and Goldenrod was a
very demon! Pshaw! This is America, and once we had an ideal! For the
rest, though I do not go to church, I believe in God, and though I have
been called an unscrupulous lawyer, I take no dirty money. Some say that
I am a demagogue--I think that they are wrong. I love your niece, sir,
and more than that--oh, much more than that!--she says that she loves
me. She says that she will share my life. If I make not that sharing
sweet to her, then indeed--But I will! I will give her wealth and name
and place, and a heart to keep. Again I say that the fault of this
meeting is all mine. I humbly beg your pardon, Colonel Churchill, and I
beg your consent to my marriage with your niece--"

[Illustration: YOU ARE A SCOUNDREL, S