Elsie had gathered so many of these sculpture-like monstrosities, that one might have thought she had robbed old Sophy’s grandfather of his fetishes.  They helped to give her room a kind of enchanted look, as if a witch had her home in it.  Over the fireplace was a long, staff-like branch, strangled in the spiral coils of one of those vines which strain the smaller trees in their clinging embraces, sinking into the bark until the parasite becomes almost identified with its support.  With these sylvan curiosities were blended objects of art, some of them not less singular, but others showing a love for the beautiful in form and color, such as a girl of fine organization and nice culture might naturally be expected to feel and to indulge, in adorning her apartment.

All these objects, pictures, bronzes, vases, and the rest, did not detain Mr. Richard Veneer very long, whatever may have been his sensibilities to art.  He was more curious about books and papers.  A copy of Keats lay on the table.  He opened it and read the name of Bernard C. Langdon on the blank leaf.  An envelope was on the table with Elsie’s name written in a similar hand; but the envelope was empty, and he could not find the note it contained.  Her desk was locked, and it would not be safe to tamper with it.  He had seen enough; the girl received books and notes from this fellow up at the school, this usher, this Yankee quill-driver;—­he was aspiring to become the lord of the Dudley domain, then, was he?

Elsie had been reasonably careful.  She had locked up her papers, whatever they might be.  There was little else that promised to reward his curiosity, but he cast his eye on everything.  There was a clasp-Bible among her books.  Dick wondered if she ever unclasped it.  There was a book of hymns; it had her name in it, and looked as if it might have been often read;—­what the diablo had Elsie to do with hymns?

Mr. Richard Venner was in an observing and analytical state of mind, it will be noticed, or he might perhaps have been touched with the innocent betrayals of the poor girl’s chamber.  Had she, after all, some human tenderness in her heart?  That was not the way he put the question,—­but whether she would take seriously to this schoolmaster, and if she did, what would be the neatest and surest and quickest way of putting a stop to all that nonsense.  All this, however, he could think over more safely in his own quarters.  So he stole softly to the window, and, catching the end of the leathern thong, regained his own chamber and drew in the lasso.

It needs only a little jealousy to set a man on who is doubtful in love or wooing, or to make him take hold of his courting in earnest.  As soon as Dick had satisfied himself that the young schoolmaster was his rival in Elsie’s good graces, his whole thoughts concentrated themselves more than ever on accomplishing his great design of securing her for himself.  There was no time to be lost.