Have you
got any more directions?"
"No, I believe not, Aunt Patsy. If I don't get in earlier, I'll be along
by early candle-light, anyway. Meantime, don't allow him to get out of
his bed."
Angelo said, with calm determination:
"I shall be baptized at two o'clock. Nothing but death shall prevent
me."
The doctor said nothing aloud, but to himself he said:
"Why, this chap's got a manly side, after all! Physically he's a coward,
but morally he's a lion. I'll go and tell the others about this; it will
raise him a good deal in their estimation--and the public will follow
their lead, of course."
Privately, Aunt Patsy applauded too, and was proud of Angelo's courage in
the moral field as she was of Luigi's in the field of honor.
The boy Henry was troubled, but the boy Joe said, inaudibly, and
gratefully, "We're all honky, after all; and no postponement on account
of the weather."
CHAPTER VIII
BAPTISM OF THE BETTER HALF
By nine o'clock the town was humming with the news of the midnight duel,
and there were but two opinions about it: one, that Luigi's pluck in the
field was most praiseworthy and Angela's flight most scandalous; the
other, that Angelo's courage in flying the field for conscience' sake was
as fine and creditable as was Luigi's in holding the field in the face of
the bullets.
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