His office stood a stone's throw from the court-house, in a thriving
town in the West. Arthur had taken a full course in a Northern
college, both in the collegiate and law department, and with some
honour. During his course he had managed to read an amazing amount
of English literature, and no man was readier or had a keener taste
in such things than he. He had a pleasing personal appearance, a
fluent and persuasive manner, an unblemished character. Every
morning he came to his office from one of the most pleasant little
cottage homes in the world; and if you had opened the little front
gate, and gone up through the shrubbery to the house, you would have
seen a Mrs. Leland, somewhere in-doors, and she as intelligent and
pleasant a lady as you ever saw. You would have seen, moreover,
tumbling about the grass, or up to the eyes in some mischief, as
noble-looking a little fellow of some three years old as you could
well have wished for your own son.
This all looks well enough, but there is something wrong. Not in the
house. No; it is as pleasant a cottage as you could wish--plenty of
garden, peas and honeysuckles climbing up everywhere, green grass,
white paint, Venetian blinds, comfortable furniture.
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