--years
hence, perhaps--he would consult with her father as to the man. They
must be satisfied that he would make her happy--they two. It must be a
careful, cautious, slow matter. He might surely claim so much of a
guardianship over her! He had studied her character very carefully, and
appreciated it as a rare and delicate one; and he was very fond of the
captain--very fond of the captain. But as for the plan of marriage--Mr.
Neckart understood his own disgust at the judge, and accounted for it
naturally. He had but little of the ordinary chivalric belief in woman's
modesty and purity. Much knowledge of female lobbyists and literary
tramps and champagne-tippling belles had shaken his faith, probably.

"But this girl is the most innocent, sincerest thing God ever made," he
said. "She is clean in thought and body and word."

In those long days on the Maine coast, or by the sea-wall at St.
Augustine, or crossing the interminable mountain-ranges or alkali
deserts, he had had time to read this candid soul page by page: her
clear skin and liquid eyes were not more transparent than her thoughts.
All through that day's work a young noble figure moved like a shadow--a
woman with the brave blue eyes, the ruddy lips, the grand
unconsciousness of the great women of her race. The blood of Aslauga and
Ingeborg was in her veins. So strong was this feeling upon him, that
always, when he was making ready to meet her, he bathed and arrayed
himself as if he was going to take part in the rites of a church or some
sacred place. "'So white, so fair, so sweet was she!'" he sang softly to
himself. And guzzling Rhodes, with his oily laugh and fat hands, meant
to show her off, exhibit her fine points to this Admirable Crichton of
morality, and persuade him to marry her! Was there any danger that she
would love or marry him? She was undoubtedly dull in perception of
character: had she not always made a demigod of the silly old captain?
The finest vessels were always first to break themselves to pieces
against some earthen pitcher.

He made haste to take an early afternoon train. He would see his friends
again before Rhodes arrived.

CHAPTER VII.

The Hemlock Farm, the captain's new possession, was a great untrimmed
tract of farm and woodland on the Hudson, with a rough-hewn stone house,
open-windowed and wide-doored, uncivilized and picturesque, set down
hospitably in the midst of it. Mr. Neckart, striking across the fields
from the littl