ere; he did not want to
think that she was the kind of girl who would conceal her engagement
from him, or who could do it, for that matter. But, everything
considered, he was very glad Olive had gone to Broadstone, for, whatever
the young fellow might happen to be, he wanted to know all about him
before Olive met him.

Captain Asher firmly believed that there was nothing of the matchmaker
in his disposition, but notwithstanding this estimate of himself, he
went on thinking of Olive and the son of his old shipmate, both
separately and together. He had never said to anybody, nor intimated to
anybody, that he was going to give any of his moderate fortune to his
niece. In fact, before this visit to him he had not thought much about
it, nor did it enter his mind that Olive's Boston aunt, her mother's
sister, had favored this visit of the girl to her toll-gate uncle,
hoping that he might think about it.

In consequence of these cogitations, and in spite of the fact that he
despised matchmaking, Captain Asher was greatly interested in the coming
advent of his shipmate's son.

When the same phaeton, the same horse, and the same boy that had brought
Maria Port to the tollhouse, conveyed there a young man with two
valises, one rather large, Captain Asher did not hurry from the house to
meet his visitor. He had seen him coming, and had preferred to stand in
his doorway and take a preliminary observation of him. Having taken
this, Captain Asher was obliged to confess to himself that he was
disappointed.

The first cause of his disappointment was the fact that the young man
wore a colored shirt and no vest, and a yellow leather belt. Now,
Captain Asher for the greater part of his active life had worn colored
shirts, sometimes very dark ones, with no vests, but he had not supposed
that a young man coming to a house where there was a young lady
accustomed to the best society would present himself in such attire. The
captain instantly remembered that his visitor could not know that there
was a young lady at the house, but this did not satisfy him. Such attire
was not respectful, even to him. The leather belt especially offended
him. The captain was not aware of the _neglige_ summer fashions for men
which then prevailed.

The next thing that disappointed him was that young Lancaster, seen
across the garden, did not appear to be the strapping young fellow he
had expected to see. He was moderately tall, and moderately broad, and
ha