Like many people of strong and imperious
temper, he was soft-voiced and very gentle in his address, when he had no
special reason for being otherwise. He soon found reasons enough to be as
amiable as he could force himself to be with his uncle and his
cousin. Elsie was to his fancy. She had a strange attraction for him, quite
unlike anything he had ever known in other women. There was something, too,
in early associations: when those who parted as children meet as man and
woman, there is always a renewal of that early experience which followed
the taste of the forbidden fruit,--a natural blush of consciousness, not
without its charm.
Nothing could be more becoming than the behavior of "Richard Venner,
Esquire, the guest of Dudley Venner, Esquire, at his noble mansion," as he
was announced in the Court column of the "Rockland Weekly Universe." He was
pleased to find himself treated with kindness and attention as a
relative. He made himself very agreeable by abundant details concerning the
religious, political, social, commercial, and educational progress of the
South American cities and states. He was himself much interested in
everything that was going on about the Dudley mansion, walked all over it,
noticed its valuable wood-lots with special approbation, was delighted with
the grand old house and its furniture, and would not be easy until he had
seen all the family silver and heard its history. In return, he had much to
tell of his father, now dead,--the only one of the Tenners, beside
themselves, in whose fate his uncle was interested.
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