Head Winds

The hurts of Perkins did not, unhappily, delay the progress of my
uncle to that destruction to which his silly wife and knavish lawyer
had destined him. His business was brought before the court by the
claimants, Messrs. Banks & Tressell; and a brief period only was
left him for putting in his answer. When I thought of Julia, I
resolved, in spite of all previous difficulties--the sneers of the
father, and the more direct, coarse insults of the mother--to make
one more effort to rescue him from the fate which threatened him.
I felt sure that, for the reasons already given, the merchants
would still be willing to effect a compromise which would secure
them the principal of their claim, without incurring the delay and
risk of litigation. Accordingly, I penned a note to Mr. Clifford,
requesting permission to wait upon him at home, at a stated hour.

To this I received a cold, brief answer, covering the permission
which I sought. I went, but might as well have spared myself the
labor and annoyance of this visit. Mrs. Clifford was still in the
ascendant--still deaf to reason, and utterly blind to the base
position into which her meddlesome interference in the business
threw her husband. She had her answer ready; and did not merely
content herself with rejecting my overtures, but proceeded to speak
in the language of one who really regarded me as busily seeking,
by covert ways, to effect the ruin of her family. Her looks and
language equally expressed the indignation of a mind perfectly
convinced of the fraudulent and evil purposes of the person she
addressed. Those of my uncle were scarcely less offensive. A grin
of malicious self-gratulation mantled his lips as he thanked me
for my counsel, which, he yet remarked, "however wise and good,
and well-intended, he did not think it advisable to adopt. He had
every confidence in the judgment of Mr. Perkins, who, though without
the great legal knowledge of some of his youthful neighbors, had
enough for his purposes; and had persuaded him to see the matter
in a very different point of view from that in which I was pleased
to regard it."