Nellie thought it her duty, and I suppose it was, to tell
her bear-like guardian what had befallen to her sister.
He was less disturbed on hearing the intelligence than
Nellie supposed, and merely expressed some cold-blooded
surprise at the presumption of the half-breed. He sat
at his desk, and taking a sheet of paper, wrote this
letter:
"To Alexander Saunders:
"DEAR SIR,--Would you be good enough to call at my house
this evening at eight o'clock?
"Yours truly,
"Thomas Brown."
Having sealed and dispatched this note he resumed his
work, without showing or feeling any further concern
about the matter. When it was growing dark over the
prairie that evening, the love-lorn Jennie saw her
pleading-eyed lover pass along in the shadow of the
poplars toward her guardian's house. She heard his ring
at the door, and his step in the hall. Her heart was in
a great flutter; but her sister was at her side giving
her comfort. The doors were wide open, but everything
was so husht, that the girls could plainly hear the
following words spoken in the guardian's library:
"I understand, Mr. Saunders, that you have been taking
the astonishingly presumptuous course of soliciting the
hand of one of my wards. I am not given to severity, or
I do not exactly know how I ought to resent an act which
exhibits such a forgetfulness of what your attitude should
be towards a person in the station of my ward. You are
merely a half-breed; you are half-Indian, and for that
matter might as well be Indian altogether.
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