He staid to dinner, as I have said, and to supper.  He staid over night.  He took up his board at the house of Samuel Anderson.  Who could resist his entreaty?  Did he not assure them that he felt the need of a home in a cultivated family?  And was it not the one golden opportunity to have the daughter of the house taught music by a private master, and thus give a special eclat to her education?  How Mrs. Anderson hoped that this superior advantage would provoke jealous remarks on the part of her neighbors!  It was only necessary to the completion of her triumph that they should say she was “stuck up.”  Then, too, to have so brilliant a beau for Julia!  A beau with watch-seals and a mustache, a beau who had been to Paris with his mother, studied music in the Conservatory at Leipsic, dined with the American minister in Berlin, and done ever so many more wonderful things, was a prospect to delight the ambitious heart of Mrs. Anderson, especially as he flattered the mother instead of the daughter.

“He’s a independent citizen of this Federal Union,” said Jonas to Cynthy, “carries his head like he was intimately ’quainted with the ‘merican eagle hisself.  He’s playin’ this game sharp.  He deals all the trumps to hisself, and most everything besides.  He’ll carry off the gal if something don’t arrest him in his headlong career.  Jist let me git a chance at him when he’s soarin’ loftiest into the amber blue above, and I’ll cut his kite-string for him, and let him fall like fork-ed lightnin’ into a mud-puddle.”

Cynthy said she did see one great sin that he had committed for sure.  That was the puttin’ on of gold and costly apparel.  It was sot down in the Bible and in the Methodist Discipline that it was a sin to wear gold, and she should think the poor man hadn’t no sort o’ regard for his soul, weighing it down with them things.

But Jonas only remarked that he guessed his jewelry warn’t no sin.  He didn’t remember nothing agin wearin’ pewter.

CHAPTER X.

AN OFFER OF HELP.

The singing-master, Mr. Humphreys, went to singing-school and church with Julia in a matter-of-course way, treating her with attention, but taking care not to make himself too attentive.  Except that Julia could not endure his smile—­which was, like some joint stock companies, strictly limited—­she liked him well enough.  It was something to her, in her monotonous life under the eye of her mother, who almost never left her alone, and who cut off all chance for communication with August—­it was something to have the unobtrusive attentions of Mr. Humphreys, who always interested her with his adventures.  For indeed it really seemed that he had had more adventures than any dozen other men.  How should a simple-hearted girl understand him?  How should she read the riddle of a life so full of duplicity—­of multiplicity—­as the life of Joshua Humphreys, the music-teacher?  Humphreys intended to make love to her, but during the first two weeks he only aimed to gain her esteem.  He felt that there was a clue which he had not got.  But at last the key dropped into his hands, and he felt sure that the unsophisticated girl was in his power.