“Why, you know how Ellen is, momma.  You know how conscientious and—­and —­sensitive.  Or, I don’t mean sensitive, exactly.”

“Well?”

“Well, I don’t think she ought to be engaged to Mr. Breckon out of —­gratitude.”

“Gratitude?”

“Yes.  I just know that she thinks—­or it would be just like her—­that he saved me that day.  But he only met me about a second before we came to her and poppa, and the officers were taking me right along towards them.”  Mrs. Kenton held herself stormily in, and he continued:  “I know that he translated for us before the magistrate, but the magistrate could speak a little English, and when he saw poppa he saw that it was all right, anyway.  I don’t want to say anything against Mr. Breckon, and I think he behaved as well any one could; but if Ellen is going to marry him out of gratitude for saving me—­”

Mrs. Kenton could hold in no longer.  “And is this what you’ve been bothering the life half out of me for, for the last hour?”

“Well, I thought you ought to look at it in that light, momma.”

“Well, Boyne,” said his mother, “sometimes I think you’re almost a fool!” and she turned her back upon her son and left him.

Boyne’s place in the Kenton family, for which he continued to have the highest regard, became a little less difficult, a little less incompatible with his self-respect as time went on.  His spirit, which had lagged a little after his body in stature, began, as his father said, to catch up.  He no longer nourished it so exclusively upon heroical romance as he had during the past year, and after his return to Tuskingum he went into his brother Richard’s once, and manifested a certain curiosity in the study of the law.  He read Blackstone, and could give a fair account of his impressions of English law to his father.  He had quite outlived the period of entomological research, and he presented his collections of insects (somewhat moth-eaten) to his nephew, on whom he also bestowed his postage-stamp album; Mary Kenton accepted them in trust, the nephew being of yet too tender years for their care.  In the preoccupations of his immediate family with Ellen’s engagement, Boyne became rather close friends with his sister-in-law, and there were times when he was tempted to submit to her judgment the question whether the young Queen of Holland did not really beckon to him that day.  But pending the hour when he foresaw that Lottie should come out with the whole story, in some instant of excitement, Boyne had not quite the heart to speak of his experience.  It assumed more and more respectability with him, and lost that squalor which had once put him to shame while it was yet new.  He thought that Mary might be reasoned into regarding him as the hero of an adventure, but he is still hesitating whether to confide in her.  In the meantime she knows all about it.  Mary and Richard both approved of Ellen’s choice, though they are somewhat puzzled