As she said "your accounts and so forth," she looked at the table

from which Mr. Aylett had arisen to set a chair for her. There was a

pile of account-books at the side against the wall, but they were

shut, and over heaped by pamphlets and newspapers; while before the

owner's seat lay an open portfolio, an unfinished letter within it.

Winston wiped his pen with deliberation, closed the portfolio,

snapped to the spring-top of his inkstand, and finally wheeled his

office chair away from the desk to face his visitor.

"Is it upon business that you wish to speak to me?"

He always disdained circumlocution, prided himself upon the

directness and simplicity of his address. This acted now as a

dissuasive to the sentimental address Mrs. Sutton had meditated as a

means of winning the flinty walls behind which his social affections

and sympathies were supposed to be intrenched. Had her mission been

in behalf of any other cause, she would have drawn off her forces

upon some pretext, and effected an ignominious retreat. Nerved by

the thought of Mabel's bashfulness and solicitude, and Frederic's

strangerhood, she stood to her guns.

Winston heard her story, from the not very coherent preamble, to the

warm and unqualified endorsement of Frederic Chilton's credentials,

and her moved mention of the mutual attachment of the youthful pair,

and never changed his attitude, or manifested any inclination to

stay the narration by question or comment. When she ceased speaking,

his physiognomy denoted no emotion whatever. Yet, Mabel was his

nearest living relative. She had been bequeathed to his care, when

only ten years old, by the will of their dying father, and grown up

under his eye as his child, rather than a sister. And he was

hearing, for the first time, of her desire to quit the home they had

shared together from her birth, for the protection and companionship

of another. Mrs. Sutton thought herself pretty well versed in

"Winston's ways," but she had expected to detect a shade of softness

in the cold, never-bright eyes and anticipated another rejoinder

than the sentence that stands at the head of this chapter.

"And so you know nothing of this gentleman beyond what he has told

you of his character and antecedents?" he said--the slender white

fingers, his aunt fancied, looked cruel even in their idleness,

lightly linked together while his elbows restod upon the arms of his

chair.

"My dear Winston! what a question! Haven't I told you that he is my

husband's namesake and godson! I was at his fathers house a score of

times, at least, in dear Frederic's life-time. It was a charming

place, and I never saw a more lovely family. I recollect this boy

perfectly, as was very natural, seeing that his name was such a

compliment to my husband. He was a fine, manly little fellow, and

the eldest son. The christening-feast was postponed, for some reason

I do not now remember, until he was two years old. It was a very

fine affair. The company was composed of the very elite of that part

of Maryland, and the Bishop himself baptized the two

babies--Frederic, and a younger sister. I know all about him, you

see, instead of nothing!"




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