THE SETTLERS OF LONG ARROW. A Canadian Romance in Thirty-one Chapters.
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CHAPTER XXIII.
A month passed during which Helen saw scarcely anything of Keefe, but in the meantime she had made an acquaintance who took as much pains as his exorbitant self-esteem permitted to obtain her good opinion. This was Mr. Trafalgar Hubbs. As trustee of the school, it was his duty to visit it often, and he took advantage of this privilege with a frequency which sometimes made Helen wonder, though the slightest suspicion of his real motives for doing so never entered her mind. Indeed his cool, dry, measured manner conveyed an idea of anything rather than of admiration or love. The hard crust of selfishness which coated his heart seemed capable of blunting Cupid’s sharpest darts, and as to admiration, that was a feeling which those who knew him best were persuaded he reserved for himself alone. Approbation, however, he sometimes condescended to express, though always within due limits; anything like extravagance he studiously shunned on this as on all other points. But he occasionally assured Helen that he approved of her plans, that he thought her management of her scholars judicious, that he already discerned signs of mental improvement in many of them, and that their progress in order and industry was all that could have been expected. Sometimes he suggested some slight improvement, or offered some piece of advice, which, as it was always useful and well-timed, Helen very gladly adopted; so they contrived to get on very well together, Helen believing Mr. Hubbs to be a most philanthropic individual taking a praiseworthy interest in the welfare of the rising generation, and Mr. Hubbs declaring that Helen was a most admirable young woman, and that she performed her arduous duties in the most exemplary manner. The truth was, that Mr. Hubbs was fully determined to exalt Helen to the rank of his wife. Her beauty had captivated him almost the first time he had seen her, and, though his penetration soon discovered that she had moved in a very different sphere of life to his own, he never supposed that in her present altered circumstances that could be any bar to his wishes. He never imagined that she could hesitate for an instant between her toilsome and humble life as a village school teacher and the prosperous and independent position of Mr. Hubbs’s wife—a man whose personal attractions, talents, and wealth were more than sufficient, he flattered himself, to win the favour of any woman. But, though satisfied that in gaining Helen for his wife he would gain one whose beauty, grace, and accomplishments would add lustre to any station, however high, he might hereafter attain, he determined to examine her character, temper, and disposition thoroughly before committing himself; for it was not possible for Mr. Hubbs to forget his cardinal virtue of prudence in so important a matter as the choice of a wife, or to suffer himself to be swayed by impulse instead of reflection.
