She was perfectly safe after writing to
Basil Ransom; and, indeed, it was difficult to see what he could have
done to her except thank her (he was only exceptionally superlative) for
her letter, and assure her that he would come and see her the first time
his business (he was beginning to get a little) should take him to
Boston. He had now come, in redemption of his grateful vow, and even
this did not make Miss Chancellor feel that she had courted danger. She
saw (when once she had looked at him) that he would not put those
worldly interpretations on things which, with her, it was both an
impulse and a principle to defy. He was too simple--too
Mississippian--for that; she was almost disappointed. She certainly had
not hoped that she might have struck him as making unwomanly overtures
(Miss Chancellor hated this epithet almost as much as she hated its
opposite); but she had a presentiment that he would be too good-natured,
primitive to that degree. Of all things in the world, contention was
most sweet to her (though why it is hard to imagine, for it always cost
her tears, headaches, a day or two in bed, acute emotion), and it was
very possible Basil Ransom would not care to contend.
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