"But Colonel McAllister is a very respectable middle-aged planter now, papa," said Lillie.
"Respectable! Oh, my child! do not persist in talking as if you were still in the nursery. Saint Paul, Pascal, Wilberforce couldn't have remained respectable if they had been slaveholding planters."
To Colonel Carter personally the Doctor was perfectly civil, as he was to every one with whom he was obliged to come in contact, including the reprobated McAllister and his similars. Even had he been of a combative disposition, or been twice as prejudiced against Carter as he was, he could not have brought himself in these days and with his present loyal enthusiasm, to discourteously entreat an officer who wore the United States uniform and who had bled in the cause of country against treason. Moreover he felt a certain degree of good-will towards our military _roué_, as being the patron of his particular friend Colburne. Of this young man he seemed almost as fond as if he were his father, without, however, entertaining the slightest thought of gaining him for a son-in-law. I never knew, nor read of, not even in the most unnatural novels, an American father who was a matchmaker.
So the autumn and half the winter passed away, without any one falling in love, unless it might be Colburne. It needed all his good sense to keep him from it; or rather to keep him from paying Miss Ravenel what are called significant attentions; for as to his being in love, I admit it, although he did not. To use old-fashioned language, alarming in its directness and strength of meaning, I suppose he would have courted her if she would have let him. But there was something in the young lady's manner towards him which kept him at arm's length; which had the charm of friendship, indeed, but no faintest odor of even the possibility of love, just as certain flowers have beauty but no perfume; which said to him very gently but also very firmly, "Mr. Colburne, you had better not be in a hurry."
At times he was under sudden and violent temptation. The trusting Doctor placed Lillie under his charge to go to one or two concerts and popular lectures, following therein the simple and virtuous ways of New Boston, where young ladies have a freedom which in larger and wickeder cities is only accorded to married women. On the way to and from these amusements, Lillie's hand resting lightly on his arm, and the obscurity of the streets veiling whatever reproof or warning might sparkle in her eyes, his heart was more urgent and his soul less timid than usual.