Moreover, Mr. Marvyn was not displeased with this defence of James,
as might be inferred from his mentioning it four or five times in the
course of the morning, to say how foolish it was,--wondering why it was
that Candace and everybody else got so infatuated with that boy,--and
ending, at last, after a long period of thought, with the remark, that
these poor African creatures often seemed to have a great deal of
shrewdness in them, and that he was often astonished at the penetration
that Candace showed.
At the end of the year James came home, more quiet and manly than he had
ever been known before,--so handsome with his sunburnt face, and his
keen, dark eyes, and glossy curls, that half the girls in the front
gallery lost their hearts the first Sunday he appeared in church. He was
tender as a woman to his mother, and followed her with his eyes, like a
lover, wherever she went; he made due and manly acknowledgments to his
father, but declared his fixed and settled intention to abide by the
profession he had chosen; and he brought home all sorts of strange
foreign gifts for every member of the household. Candace was glorified
with a flaming red and yellow turban of Moorish stuff, from Mogadore,
together with a pair of gorgeous yellow morocco slippers with peaked
toes, which, though there appeared no call to wear them in her common
course of life, she would put on her fat feet and contemplate with
daily satisfaction. She became increasingly strengthened thereby in the
conviction that the angels who had their hooks in Massa James's jacket
were already beginning to shorten the line.
Pages:
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238