'
I listened with amazement. I could discover nothing but what was
disagreeable in the horrid bumpkin, and thought such an instance of the
blindness of parental partiality was hardly credible.
I looked down, dreading another direct appeal to my judgment; and Uncle
Silas, I suppose, referred those downcast looks to maiden modesty, for he
forbore to task mine by any new interrogatory.
Dudley Ruthyn's cool and resolute denial of ever having seen me or the
places I had named, and the inflexible serenity of his countenance while
doing so, did very much shake my confidence in my own identification of
him. I could not be _quite_ certain that the person I had seen at Church
Scarsdale was the very same whom I afterwards saw at Knowl. And now, in
this particular instance, after the lapse of a still longer period, could I
be perfectly certain that my memory, deceived by some accidental points of
resemblance, had not duped me, and wronged my cousin, Dudley Ruthyn?
I suppose my uncle had expected from me some signs of acquiesence in his
splendid estimate of his cub, and was nettled at my silence. After a short
interval he said--
'I've seen something of the world in my day, and I can say without a
misgiving of partiality, that Dudley is the material of a perfect English
gentleman.
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