A group of some half dozen ladies and two gentlemen were gathered at one of the open windows, into which the warm air blew widely. One of the gentlemen was Mr. Harry Oliver, a young man about eighteen years old. He wore his own hair curled and hanging to his shoulders, and he put it back with his hand every now and then as he talked. He showed his white teeth when he smiled, and his large, dark eyes moved restlessly hither and thither. “Yonder comes Dick Parker,” said he suddenly. “Why, so it is,” said Miss Peggy Oliver. They all looked toward the new comer. “Upon my word,” she continued, “he is a man I can’t abide for the life of me. As proud, haughty a man as ever I saw. He turns me to a block of ice whenever I am near him, and I can’t find a word to say for myself.” “Why, Peggy,” said Oliver, “that, then, must be why you can’t abide him,” and thereupon the group broke into a laugh. Mr. Richard Parker, who had just come into the room, was standing quietly waiting to speak to the Governor. He did not try to push his way through the circle that surrounded his Excellency, and for a while nobody saw him. His handsome, florid face, surrounded by a fine powdered wig, looked calmly and steadily in the direction of the Governor. He stood quite impassive, waiting an opportunity to go forward when he would not have to push his way through the crowd. Presently some one saw him and spoke to the others, and they made way for him almost as with deference. He went forward calmly and paid his respects in a few brief words. He spoke with the Governor for a little while, or rather the Governor spoke to him, and he replied. All the time the Governor was speaking, Mr. Parker was looking steadily and composedly around the room, glancing back toward his interlocutor every now and then to reply. Presently there was a pause, and then at last Mr. Richard Parker bowed and withdrew to a little distance. “Why, only look at him now,” said Peggy Oliver, “even his Excellency is not good enough for him.” “Well, to be sure, Peggy,” said one of the elder ladies, “if Mr. Parker is proud, he hath enough to make him proud when you think what a great man of fashion he hath been in his day. ‘T is not every man who hath had the luck to be a friend of the Duke of Marlborough. ‘T is a wonder to me that he should ever have come here to the provinces, seeing what a great man of fashion he was at home in England.” The two gentlemen burst out laughing. “Why,” said Will Costigan, “for that matter, ‘t was Hobson’s choice betwixt Virginia or the debtor’s prison, madam.”