"So you see my mouth is at fault again. Hang it all, I can't imagine
what ails it, that everybody should think I'm making fun of them.
Even old Safford mutters about my making mouths at him when I haven't
thought of him in a month! Present my compliments to the old gentleman
and tell him one of 'the boys' thinks seriously of following his
advice, which you know is 'to sow our wild oats and get a wife.' Do,
pray, come, for I am only half myself without you.
"Yours in the brotherhood,
"HENRY WARNER."
For a time after reading the above George Douglas sat wrapped in
thought, then bursting into a laugh as he thought how much the letter
was like the jovial, light-hearted fellow who wrote it, he put it
aside, and leaning back in his chair mused long and silently, not of
Theo, but of Maggie, half wishing he were in Warner's place instead of
being there in the dusty city. But as this could not be, he contented
himself with thinking that at some time not far distant he would visit
the old stone house--would see for himself this wonderful Maggie--and,
though he had been warned against it, would possibly win her from
his friend, who, unconsciously perhaps, had often crossed his path,
watching him jealously lest he should look too often and too long upon
the fragile Rose, blooming so sweetly in her bird's-nest of a home
among the tall old trees of Leominster.
"But he need not fear," he said somewhat bitterly, "he need not fear
for her, for it is over now.
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