heart; his head, I think, on the whole. So much hospitality, paternal
solicitude, and commercial prudence was surely never packed into one
scheme."

He broke off for a minute and, still looking at her, began to drum with
his finger-tips on the cloth. His mouth was pursed up as if silently
whistling an air. Ruby could neither move nor speak. The spell upon
her was much like that which had lain on Young Zeb, the night before,
during the hornpipe. She felt weak as a child in the presence of this
man, or rather as one recovering from a long illness. He seemed to fill
the room, speaking words as if they were living things, as if he were
taking the world to bits and re-arranging it before her eyes.
She divined the passion behind these words, and she longed to get a
sight of it, to catch an echo of the voice that had sung beneath her
window, an hour before. But when he resumed, it was in the same
bloodless and contemptuous tone.

"Your father was very anxious that I should supplant this young
jowter--"

"O Lord! I never said it."

"Allow me," said the stranger, without deigning to look round,
"to carry on this courtship in my own way. Your father, young woman,
desired--it was none of my suggestion--that I should insinuate myself
into your good graces. I will not conceal from you my plain opinion of
your father's judgment in these matters. I think him a fool."

"Name o' thunder!"