"Why don't you compliment me, Mr. Cromwell?" she said, turning round, with a smile. "Do you know you are wanting in your duty, sir? Every young lady expects to be complimented, when she has done a young gentleman the favor to sing to him."
"It was because I was so charmed," said James Cromwell, with more readiness than might have been expected. "I was so charmed that I was incapable of saying a word."
"I am afraid you are like the rest of your sex, a sad flatterer, Mr. Cromwell," said the young lady, shaking her head, with a smile. "You don't expect me to believe that, now, do you?"
"Yes, I do, Miss Manton, for it is perfectly true," said James Cromwell, plucking up courage; "you sing like a nightingale."
"Do I? I was so afraid you'd say like an owl, or something else uncomplimentary. As you have behaved so well, I must sing you something more."
So the evening passed. The young lady paid assiduous attention to her visitor, and when they parted her task was accomplished. James Cromwell was in love.
Robert Raymond did not propose to rebel against his guardian's arrangements, however disagreeable they were to himself. He had written a letter to Paul Morton, and he hoped that his remonstrance would have some effect. But meanwhile he determined to accept his fate, and act in accordance with the instructions which had been given him.
There was a private school in Madison, kept by a college graduate, and to this school Robert was sent by James Cromwell. He found himself the most advanced pupil in the classics, and he soon found that his teacher's acquirements were far from extensive or thorough. Still he could learn by his own efforts, though not of course, as well as at his former school, and he resolved to make the best of it. Of his connection with the school nothing in particular need be said. He was regular in attendance, and was treated with a degree of deference by the teacher, who perceived that his scholarship was sufficient to enable him to detect his own slender acquirements.
Meanwhile the flirtation between James Cromwell and Clara Manton continued. The young lady was always gracious, and so far as her manner went, might readily be supposed to have formed a decided inclination for her admirer, for such the druggist had now become. She had a certain dash and liveliness of manner which fascinated him, and he felt flattered in no slight degree that such a young lady should have singled him out as her favorite.