Page:The Berkeleys and their neighbors.djvu/101

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after the first greeting. "He is up, storming and swearing for breakfast by sunrise, so as to be at the court-house by nine o'clock. I never expected to see him so happy again in dear old Virginia. It is some excitement for him. As for Jane, she is beginning to think Bob Henry a martyr and a hero combined."

Pembroke smiled. It was not the first praise that had reached his ears, but the first that he had heeded. He had quite lost sight in the last few extraordinary days of any outside view of what he was doing—but praise from a pretty woman—especially praise so obviously sincere, is dear to man's heart.

"I am sorry the Colonel should be so uproarious in consequence of the trial."

"He is, I assure you. But I—I—too, feel very great interest in your success. How much more noble this is than dawdling on the continent! You will not get any money by it, but think—the whole county will admire and applaud you—and think of those two poor black creatures."

"You are crediting me with more than I deserve," he said, finding it difficult to explain that what he was doing had long passed out of the region of a desire for applause, and indeed, of the feeling of compassion which had once inspired him. Now it was the overpowering intellectual and natural bent that was having its own way. Pembroke had been born a lawyer, although he did not suspect it.

In taking his thoughts back to that remote period