The penitent should keep his sermons and
soda-water to himself."
"Well, here we are at home. We have walked a mile, and yet it seems but
a furlong. If I were not so disagreeable as you say, we would take
another turn about the Common."
"Sleep will do you more good, my friend; and I think I'll go home. I
haven't smoked since dinner. Good night!"
Greenleaf went to his room, but not at once to sleep; his nerves were
still too tremulous. With the picture of Alice before him, he sat for
hours in a dreamy reverie; and when at last he went to bed, he placed
the miniature under his pillow.
CHAPTER VIII.
A YOUNG FINANCIER AT HOME.
John Fletcher lived in a small, but neat house at the South End.
Slender and youthful as he looked, he was not a bachelor, but had a
pretty, fragile-looking wife, to whom he was married when only nineteen
years of age. Such a union could have been brought about only by what
the world calls an indiscretion, or from an unreflecting, hasty
impulse. Girl as Mrs. Fletcher seemed to be, she was not without
prudence as a housekeeper; and as far as she could command her
inconstant temper, she made home attractive to her husband. But neither
of them had the weight of character to act as a counterpoise to the
vacillation of the other.
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