ange. It's pride that's to pay now,--she's getting ashamed of the
shop."

And he remembered the queer look Alexander had cast around him the last
time he entered that room; and he knew that this same Alexander was now
expected home daily.

This was the rock, then, against which the sturdy craft of Silas was
destined to strike and go to pieces! This was the whirlpool which should
uproot the fairest tree and swing it to final ingulfing! Dark
foreboding! sad fear! his heart was so concerned about Columbia Dexter.
Alas for the halcyon days! it was winter indeed, but a winter worthy of
Labrador.

So much she rejoiced in this midshipman's advancement, so proud of it
she seemed,--she was so bold in prophecy where he was concerned, so
manifestly fitted to appreciate a hero's career,--she could talk so long
about him without every suspecting that the theme might please another
less,--there was but one end likely, or desirable, for all this.

Then Alexander came. And his popularity waxed, instead of waning. So
Silas at last gravely said to himself, after his sensible, moderate
manner of dealing with that unhappy person, "If she and the young man
were only married and settled, there the business would end; _he_ should
no longer be distracted, as he did not deny he had long been, on her
account." That admission was fatal. It compelled him to ask himself
sharply why he should be distracted. "What business was this of his? Did
he not, above all things, desire that Columbia should be happy? Must she
not be the best judge of what could make her happiness?" He tried to
deal honestly with himself.

This endeavor led him to remark one morning to Columbia,--

"You and Alexander seem to be getting on finely."

"Oh, yes," said she,--"of course."

"I hope you always will," he continued, with a tragic vehemence of wish.

"Thank you, Silas; we shall, I think," she replied, with such an excess
of gratitude, so he deemed it, that the poor fellow attempted no more.

All that day he thought and thought; and at night Silas Swift looked
back from a corner of High Street at a building over whose door a flag
was waving, and said to himself, "I was born as free as others,"--and he
walked on silently, with himself for his dismal company.

It made no difference to him where he went, which path he took, he said;
but he passed Salt Lane, and crossed Long Wharf, and walked down the
beach, under the old sycamores, and wandered on. There was anothe