Your face
had the frank expression of a child--how often in fancy I've seen it
since!--the words came from your lips almost as a child would speak them.
Now that I see you again I know how true my second thoughts were of you
and of myself. I deserve a whipping instead of your pardon."
There was a point yet to be cleared up in Ella's mind, and she remarked
coldly, "I do not see how you could have had any other thoughts than what
you term your second thoughts."
"Nor do I, now; and I suppose you can have no mercy on a poor fellow who
is often hasty and wrong-headed. I will make a clean breast of it. I was
charmed with your expression when first aware of your presence, but when
you spoke you touched a sore spot. Miss Bodine, you would not be
ostracized at the North. You would be treated with the courtesy and
cordiality to which every one would see you to be entitled. Practically I
am ostracized here by the class to which you belong. When you spoke I
stalked away like a sulky boy, muttering, 'Why shouldn't I be a
gentleman?' Even the girls in this town are taught to look upon
Northerners as boors. I had only to pick up an old woman, and face a
bully, when, as if in utter surprise that one of my ilk should be so
grandly heroic, I heard the words, 'You are a gentleman.' You see it was
my wretched egotism that got me into the scrape. When I thought of you,
not myself, I saw the truth at once, and felt like going back to the
expressman and meekly asking him to give me a drubbing.
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