" In his
preoccupation with the new guest, he also became a little neglectful
of his old chum and dependent, Larry Hawkins. Nor was this the only
circumstance that filled the head of that shiftless loyal retainer
of the colonel with bitterness and foreboding. Polly Swinger--the
scornfully indifferent, the contemptuously inaccessible, the coldly
capricious and petulant--was inclined to be polite to the stranger!
The fact was that Polly, after the fashion of her sex, took it into
her pretty head, against all consistency and logic, suddenly to make
an exception to her general attitude towards mankind in favor of one
individual. The reason-seeking masculine reader will rashly conclude
that this individual was the CAUSE as well as the object; but I am
satisfied that every fair reader of these pages will instinctively know
better. Miss Polly had simply selected the new guest, Mr. Starbuck, to
show OTHERS, particularly Larry Hawkins, what she COULD do if she were
inclined to be civil.
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