pardon."

He had seen in a moment, as men seem to do, when they study the much
quicker face of a girl, that his words had keenly wounded me--that I
had applied them to my father, of whom I was always thinking, though I
scarcely ever spoke of him. But I knew that Firm had meant no harm, and
I gave him my hand, though I could not speak.

"My darling," he said, "you are very dear to me--dearer than all the
world besides. I will not worry you any more. Only say that you do not
hate me."

"How could I? How could any body? Now let us go in and attend to Uncle
Sam. He thinks of every body before himself."

"And I think of every body after myself. Is that what you mean, Erema?"

"To be sure! if you like. You may put any meaning on my words that
you think proper. I am accustomed to things of that sort, and I pay no
attention whatever, when I am perfectly certain that I am right."

"I see," replied Firm, applying one finger to the side of his nose in
deep contemplation, which, of all his manners, annoyed me most. "I see
how it is; Miss Rema is always perfectly certain that she is right, and
the whole of the rest of the world quite wrong. Well, after all, there
is nothing like holding a first-rate opinion of one's self."

"You are not what I thought of you," I cried, being vexed beyond
bearance by such words, and feeling their gross injustice. "If you wish
to say any thing more, please to leave it until you recover your temper.
I am not quite accustomed to rudeness."

With these words, I drew away and walked off, partly in earnest and
partly in joke, not wishing to hear another word; and when I looked
back, being well out of sight, there he sat still, with his head on his
hands, and my heart had a little ache for him.

However, I determined to say no more, and to be extremely careful. I
could not in justice blame Ephraim Gundry for looking at me very often.
But I took good care not to look at him again unless he said something
that made me laugh, and then I could scarcely help it. He was sharp
enough very soon to find out this; and then he did a thing which was
most unfair, as I found out long afterward. He bought an American
jest-book, full of ideas wholly new to me, and these he committed to
heart, and brought them out as his own productions. If I had only known
it, I must have been exceedingly sorry for him. But Uncle Sam used to
laugh and rub his hands, perhaps for old acquaintance' sake; and when
Uncle Sam laughed,