It was one woman only who
disconcerted him, the woman who for years had routed him out of his
habitual poise and left him as discomfited as a guilty schoolboy caught
in raiding the jam-pot.
Yes, he who inspired his associates with both respect and admiration
was forced to acknowledge to himself that when face to face with Sarah
Libbie Lewis he was nothing better than a faltering ten-year-old whose
collar is too tight for him, and whose hands and feet are sizes too
large. The paradox was too humiliating to be endured! Nevertheless,
he had endured the ignominy of it for five-and-twenty years, and there
seemed to be every prospect that he would continue to endure it.
Periodically, it is true, he would rise in his wrath, resolving that
another sun should not go down on his vacillation and timidity; nay,
more, he would even stride forth to Sarah Libbie's home, vowing as he
went that before he slept he would speak the decisive words that had
for so long trembled on his tongue.
Confronted by the lady of his choice, however, his courage, like that
of the immortal Bob Acres, would ooze away, and after basking for a
wretched interval in the glory of her smile, he would retrace his steps
with the declaration still unuttered.
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