John Fletcher, as I hope may have been already seen, was by no means a weak man or an indifferent brother. He was warm-hearted, sharp-witted, and, though perhaps a little self-opinionated, considered throughout the county to be one of the most prudent in it. Indeed no one ever ventured to doubt his wisdom on all practical matters,--save his mother, who seeing him almost every day, had a stronger bias towards her younger son. "Arthur has been hit hard about that girl," he said to his wife that night. "Emily Wharton?" "Yes;--your cousin Emily. Don't say anything to him, but be as good to him as you know how." "Good to Arthur! Am I not always good to him?" "Be a little more than usually tender with him. It makes one almost cry to see such a fellow hurt like that. I can understand it, though I never had anything of it myself." "You never had, John," said the wife leaning close upon the husband's breast as she spoke. "It all came very easily to you;--too easily perhaps." "If any girl had ever refused me, I should have taken her at her word, I can tell you. There would have been no second 'hop' to that ball." "Then I suppose I was right to catch it the first time?" "I don't say how that may be." "I was right. Oh, dear me!--Suppose I had doubted, just for once, and you had gone off. You would have tried once more;--wouldn't you?" "You'd have gone about like a broken-winged old hen, and have softened me that way." "And now poor Arthur has had his wing broken." "You mustn't let on to know that it's broken, and the wing will be healed in due time. But what fools girls are!" "Indeed they are, John;--particularly me." "Fancy a girl like Emily Wharton," said he, not condescending to notice her little joke, "throwing over a fellow like Arthur for a greasy, black foreigner." "A foreigner!" "Yes;--a man named Lopez. Don't say anything about it at present. Won't she live to find out the difference, and to know what she has done! I can tell her of one that won't pity her." CHAPTER XVII Good-Bye