They were exceedingly affected; they
broke into exclamations and murmurs. Selah Tarrant went on conversing
ostentatiously with his neighbours, slowly twirling his long thumbs and
looking up at the cornice again, as if there could be nothing in the
brilliant manner in which his daughter had acquitted herself to surprise
_him_, who had heard her when she was still more remarkable, and who,
moreover, remembered that the affair was so impersonal. Miss Birdseye
looked round at the company with dim exultation; her large mild cheeks
were shining with unwiped tears. Young Mr. Pardon remarked, in Ransom's
hearing, that he knew parties who, if they had been present, would want
to engage Miss Verena at a high figure for the winter campaign. And
Ransom heard him add in a lower tone: "There's money for some one in
that girl; you see if she don't have quite a run!" As for our
Mississippian he kept his agreeable sensation for himself, only
wondering whether he might not ask Miss Birdseye to present him to the
heroine of the evening. Not immediately, of course, for the young man
mingled with his Southern pride a shyness which often served all the
purpose of humility. He was aware how much he was an outsider in such a
house as that, and he was ready to wait for his coveted satisfaction
till the others, who all hung together, should have given her the
assurance of an approval which she would value, naturally, more than
anything he could say to her.
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