in the family history, insisted on having the details of its early alliances, and professed a great pride of race, which he had inherited from his father, who, though he had allied himself with the daughter of an alien race, had yet chosen one with the real azure blood in her veins, as proud as if she had Castile and Aragon for her dower and the Cid for her grandpapa.  He also asked a great deal of advice, such as inexperienced young persons are in need of, and listened to it with great reverence.

It is not very strange that Uncle Dudley took a kinder view of his nephew than the Judge, who thought he could read a questionable history in his face,—­or the old Doctor, who knew men’s temperaments and organizations pretty well, and had his prejudices about races, and could tell an old sword-cut and a bullet-mark in two seconds from a scar got by falling against the fender, or a mark left by king’s evil.  He could not be expected to share our own prejudices; for he had heard nothing of the wild youth’s adventures, or his scamper over the Pampas at short notice.  So, then, “Richard Venner, Esquire, guest of Dudley Venner, Esquire, at his elegant mansion,” prolonged his visit until his presence became something like a matter of habit, and the neighbors settled it beyond doubt that the fine old house would be illuminated before long for a grand marriage.

He had done pretty well with the father:  the next thing was to gain over the nurse.  Old Sophy was as cunning as a red fox or a gray woodchuck.  She had nothing in the world to do but to watch Elsie; she had nothing to care for but this girl and her father.  She had never liked Dick too well; for he used to make faces at her and tease her when he was a boy, and now he was a man there was something about him—­she could not tell what—­that made her suspicious of him.  It was no small matter to get her over to his side.

The jet-black Africans know that gold never looks so well as on the foil of their dark skins.  Dick found in his trunk a string of gold beads, such as are manufactured in some of our cities, which he had brought from the gold region of Chili,—­so he said,—­for the express purpose of giving them to old Sophy.  These Africans, too, have a perfect passion for gay-colored clothing; being condemned by Nature, as it were, to a perpetual mourning-suit, they love to enliven it with all sorts of variegated stuffs of sprightly patterns, aflame with red and yellow.  The considerate young man had remembered this, too, and brought home for Sophy some handkerchiefs of rainbow hue, which had been strangely overlooked till now, at the bottom of one of his trunks.  Old Sophy took his gifts, but kept her black eyes open and watched every movement of the young people all the more closely.  It was through her that the father had always known most of the actions and tendencies of his daughter.