"
Mrs. Ashwood turned the slip over with scornful impatience, a pretty
uplifting of her eyebrows and a slight curl of her lip. "I suppose none
of those people's beginnings can bear looking into--and they certainly
should be the last ones to find fault with anybody. But, good gracious,
Jack! what has this to do with you?"
"With me?" said Shipley angrily. "Why, I proposed to Clementina last
night!"
CHAPER IX.
The wayfarers on the Tasajara turnpike, whom Mr. Daniel Harcourt
passed with his fast trotting mare and sulky, saw that their great
fellow-townsman was more than usually preoccupied and curt in his
acknowledgment of their salutations. Nevertheless as he drew near
the creek, he partly checked his horse, and when he reached a slight
acclivity of the interminable plain--which had really been the bank of
the creek in bygone days--he pulled up, alighted, tied his horse to a
rail fence, and clambering over the inclosure made his way along the
ridge. It was covered with nettles, thistles, and a few wiry dwarf
larches of native growth; dust from the adjacent highway had invaded
it, with a few scattered and torn handbills, waste paper, rags, empty
provision cans, and other suburban debris. Yet it was the site of 'Lige
Curtis's cabin, long since erased and forgotten. The bed of the old
creek had receded; the last tules had been cleared away; the channel and
embarcadero were half a mile from the bank and log whereon the pioneer
of Tasajara had idly sunned himself.
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