“Could you love me, Charity, if I did something heroic?”

“You never will, Dick.  You ’re too lazy for any use.  You ’ll never do anything harder than playing cards or fox-hunting.”

“Oh, come now, sweetheart!  I ’ve been courting you for a year, and it ’s the hardest work imaginable.  Are you never going to love me?” he pleaded.

His hand sought hers, but she drew it back beyond his reach.

“I ’ll never love you, Dick Owens, until you have done something.  When that time comes, I ’ll think about it.”

“But it takes so long to do anything worth mentioning, and I don’t want to wait.  One must read two years to become a lawyer, and work five more to make a reputation.  We shall both be gray by then.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she rejoined.  “It does n’t require a lifetime for a man to prove that he is a man.  This one did something, or at least tried to.”

“Well, I ’m willing to attempt as much as any other man.  What do you want me to do, sweetheart?  Give me a test.”

“Oh, dear me!” said Charity, “I don’t care what you do, so you do something.  Really, come to think of it, why should I care whether you do anything or not?”

“I ’m sure I don’t know why you should, Charity,” rejoined Dick humbly, “for I ’m aware that I ’m not worthy of it.”

“Except that I do hate,” she added, relenting slightly, “to see a really clever man so utterly lazy and good for nothing.”

“Thank you, my dear; a word of praise from you has sharpened my wits already.  I have an idea!  Will you love me if I run a negro off to Canada?”

“What nonsense!” said Charity scornfully.  “You must be losing your wits.  Steal another man’s slave, indeed, while your father owns a hundred!”

“Oh, there ’ll be no trouble about that,” responded Dick lightly; “I ’ll run off one of the old man’s; we ’ve got too many anyway.  It may not be quite as difficult as the other man found it, but it will be just as unlawful, and will demonstrate what I am capable of.”

“Seeing ’s believing,” replied Charity.  “Of course, what you are talking about now is merely absurd.  I ’m going away for three weeks, to visit my aunt in Tennessee.  If you ’re able to tell me, when I return, that you ’ve done something to prove your quality, I ’ll—­well, you may come and tell me about it.”

II

Young Owens got up about nine o’clock next morning, and while making his toilet put some questions to his personal attendant, a rather bright looking young mulatto of about his own age.

“Tom,” said Dick.

“Yas, Mars Dick,” responded the servant.

“I ’m going on a trip North.  Would you like to go with me?”

Now, if there was anything that Tom would have liked to make, it was a trip North.  It was something he had long contemplated in the abstract, but had never been able to muster up sufficient courage to attempt in the concrete.  He was prudent enough, however, to dissemble his feelings.