"No. But Judge Bigelow is to bring him here today, in order that I
may see and converse with him."
"You will find him," said I, a young man of few words and
unobtrusive manners--but solid as a rock. I have seen him under
circumstances calculated to test the character of any man."
"What are the circumstances, if you are free to speak of them?"
asked Mrs. Montgomery. "We get always a truer estimate of a man,
when we see him in some great battle of life; for then, his real
qualities and resources become apparent."
I thought for a little while before answering. It did not seem just
right to draw aside the veil that strangers' eyes might look upon a
life-passage such as was written in Wallingford's Book of Memory.
The brief but fierce struggle was over with him; and he was moving
steadily onward, sadder, no doubt, for the experience, and wiser, no
doubt. But the secret was his own, and I felt that no one ought to
meddle therewith. Still, a relation of the fact, showing how deeply
the man could feel, and how strong he was in self-mastery, could not
but raise him in the estimation of Mrs.
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