"Put your own construction on it, _mon oncle_; _I_ do not like it."

"I do not wonder young men remain unmarried; they are getting to be so
ultra in their tastes and notions."

A stranger might have retorted on an old bachelor, for such a speech, by
some allusion to his own example; but I well knew that my uncle Ro had
once been engaged, and that he lost the object of his passion by death,
and too much respected his constancy and true sentiments ever to joke on
such subjects. I believe he felt the delicacy of my forbearance rather
more than common, for he immediately manifested a disposition to relent,
and to prove it by changing the subject.

"We can never stay here to-night," he said. "It would be at once to
proclaim our names--our name, I might say--a name that was once so
honoured and beloved in this town, and which is now so hated!"

"No, no; not as bad as that. We have done nothing to merit hatred."

"_Raison de plus_ for hating us so much the more heartily. When men are
wronged, who have done nothing to deserve it, the evil-doer seeks to
justify his wickedness to himself by striving all he can to calumniate
the injured party; and the more difficulty he finds in doing that to his
mind, the more profound is his hatred. Rely on it, we are most sincerely
disliked here, on the spot where we were once both much beloved. Such is
human nature."

At that moment John returned to the room, to see how we were getting on,
and to count his forks and spoons, for I saw the fellow actually doing
it. My uncle, somewhat indiscreetly, I fancied, but by merely following
the chain of thought then uppermost in his mind, detained him in
conversation.

"Dis broperty," he said, inquiringly, "is de broperty of one Yeneral
Littlepage, I hears say?"

"Not of the General, who was Madam Littlepage's husband, and who has
long been dead, but of his grandson, Mr. Hugh."

"Und vhere might he be, dis Mr. Hugh?--might he be at hand, or might he
not?"

"No; he's in Europe; that is to say, in Hengland." John thought England
covered most of Europe, though he had long gotten over his wish to
return. "Mr. Hugh and Mr. Roger be both habsent from the country, just
now."

"Dat ist unfortunate, for dey dells me dere might be moch troobles here
abouts, and Injin-acting."

"There is, indeed; and a wicked thing it is, that there should be
anything of the sort."

"Und vhat might be der reason of so moch troobles?--and vhere ist der
blame?"