“After all, I don’t know but you’re right.  You would make a good country lawyer enough, I don’t doubt.  I used to think you had your ambitions, but never mind.  If you choose to risk yourself on ‘possibilities,’ it is not my affair, and she’s a beauty, there’s no mistake about that.

“There are some desirable partis at the school with your dulcinea.  There ’s Rose Bugbee.  That last name is a good one to be married from.  Rose is a nice girl,—­there are only two of them.  The estate will cut up like one of the animals it was made out of, you know,—­the sandwich-quadruped.  Then there ’s Berengaria.  Old Topping owns the Planet Hotel among other things,—­so big, they say, there’s always a bell ringing from somebody’s room day and night the year round.  Only child—­unit and six ciphers carries diamonds loose in her pocket—­that’s the story —­good-looking—­lively—­a little slangy called Livingston Jerkins ‘Living Jingo’ to his face one day.  I want you to see my lot before you do anything serious.  You owe something to the family, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw!  But you must suit yourself, after all:  if you are contented with a humble position in life, it is nobody’s business that I know of.  Only I know what life is, Murray B. Getting married is jumping overboard, any way you look at it, and if you must save some woman from drowning an old maid, try to find one with a cork jacket, or she ’ll carry you down with her.”

Murray Bradshaw was calculating enough, but he shook his head over this letter.  It was too demonish cold-blooded for him, he said to himself.  (Men cannot pardon women for saying aloud what they do not hesitate to think in silence themselves.) Never mind,—­he must have Mrs. Clymer Ketchum’s house and influence for his own purposes.  Myrtle Hazard must become her guest, and then if circumstances were favorable, he was certain obtaining her aid in his project.

The opportunity to invite Myrtle to the great mansion presented itself unexpectedly.  Early in the spring of 1861 there were some cases of sickness in Madam Delacoste’s establishment, which led to closing the school for a while.  Mrs. Clymer Ketchum took advantage of the dispersion of the scholars to ask Myrtle to come and spend some weeks with her.  There were reasons why this was more agreeable to the young girl than returning to Oxbow Village, and she very gladly accepted the invitation.

It was very remarkable that a man living as Master Byles Gridley had lived for so long a time should all at once display such liberality as he showed to a young woman who had no claim upon him, except that he had rescued her from the consequences of her own imprudence and warned her against impending dangers.  Perhaps he cared more for her than if the obligation had been the other way,—­students of human nature say it is commonly so.  At any rate, either he had ampler resources than it was commonly supposed, or he was imprudently giving way to his generous impulses, or he thought he was making advances which would in due time be returned to him.  Whatever the reason was, he furnished her with means, not only for her necessary expenses, but sufficient to afford her many of the elegances which she would be like to want in the fashionable society with which she was for a short time to mingle.