asked Mr. Pogis, respecting his
friend's wounded dignity, and ignoring Lottie and her offence.

"I don't care if I do," said Boyne in gloomy acquiescence.

XV.

Few witnesses of the fact that Julia Rasmith and her mother had found
themselves on the same steamer with the Rev. Hugh Breckon would have
been of such a simple mind as to think they were there by accident, if
they had also been witnesses of their earlier history. The ladies could
have urged that in returning from California only a few days before
the Amstel sailed, and getting a state-room which had been unexpectedly
given up, they had some claim to a charitable interpretation of their
behavior, but this plea could not have availed them with any connoisseur
of women. Besides, it had been a matter of notoriety among such of Mr.
Breckon's variegated congregation as knew one another that Mrs. Rasmith
had set her heart on him, it Julia had not set her cap for him. In that
pied flock, where every shade and dapple of doubt, from heterodox Jew to
agnostic Christian, foregathered, as it has been said, in the misgiving
of a blessed immortality, the devotion of Mrs. Rasmith to the minister
had been almost a scandal. Nothing had saved the appearance from this
character but Mr. Breckon's open acceptance of her flatteries and
hospitalities; this was so frank, and the behavior of Julia herself so
judicious under the circumstances, that envy and virtue were, if not
equally silenced, equally baffled. So far from pretending not to see her
mother's manoeuvres, Julia invited public recognition of them; in the
way of joking, which she kept within the limits of filial fondness, she
made fun of her mother's infatuation to Breckon himself, and warned
him against the moment when her wiles might be too much for him. Before
other people she did not hesitate to save him from her mother, so that
even those who believed her in the conspiracy owned that no girl could
have managed with more cleverness in a situation where not every one
would have refused to be placed. In this situation Julia Rasmith had the
service of a very clear head, and as was believed by some, a cool heart;
if she and her mother had joint designs upon the minister, hers was the
ambition, and her mother's the affection that prompted them. She was a
long, undulant girl, of a mixed blondness that left you in doubt, after
you had left her, whether her hair or her complexion were not of one
tint; but her features wer