answer his purpose. But where else should he go, or what else should
he do? As he was a little more inclined now to bet on calmness than on
passion, he decided to take a seat in the parlor, and keep it, at
least, till he could dispose of his present doubt. Easily might he have
measured three miles over the Waltham hills, in the bracing morning-air,
with his own locomotive apparatus, while he had been looking in vain for
artificial conveyance. But if that plan had occurred to him at all at
first, it would have been dismissed with contempt as unbusinesslike. He
must not, by any possibility, appear to Captain Grant to be so madly
anxious to close the bargain. He did a little regret neglecting the
service of his own proper pegs, but it was now entirely too late to
walk, and he must ride, and at a good pace, too, or lose the entire
benefit of the news which the lightning had so singularly confided to
his honest hands. The feeling with which he flung himself into that
quiet, little, economical parlor was, probably, even more desperate than
Richard's, when he offered his kingdom for a horse. It was, in fact,
just the feeling, of all others in the world, to prevent a man's getting
a horse. Had he carried it into a pasture full of horses, it would have
prevented him from catching the tamest of them. But the good influences
of the Universe, that encourage and strengthen the noble martyrs of
truth and workers of good in their arduous labors, do sometimes also
help on villains to their bad ends. Never were troubled waters more
quickly smoothed with oil, never were the poles of a magnet more quickly
reversed, than Chip's rage and rancor abated after he entered that door.
Not that he relaxed his purpose at all, or felt any essential change of
his nature, but his temper was instantly turned the right side up
for success. He was, of course, unconscious of the cause,--for it is
certainly nothing wonderful, even in the neighborhood of Boston, to see
a neat Yankee lass, in her second or third best dress, putting things
to rights of a morning, with a snowy handkerchief over her head, its