She
used to caress me, and look at me in a dreamy way, and tell me I was
the nicest and handsomest boy in the world. "And as soon as you are a
year older than I am, John," she would say, "you shall marry me, if you
like."
Another frequent visitor at our house at this time was not nearly so
much a favorite of mine. This was a German, Adolf Koerner by name, who
had been a clerk in my father's concern for a number of years, and had
just been admitted junior partner. My father placed every confidence in
him, and often declared that he had the best idea of business he had
ever met with. This may very likely have been the fact; but to me he
appeared simply a tall, grave, taciturn man, of cold manners, speaking
with a slight German accent, which I disliked. I suppose he was about
thirty-seven years of age, but I always thought of him as older than my
father, who was fifty. Another and more valid reason for my disliking
Koerner was that he was in the habit of paying a great deal of attention
to my ladylove, Miss Juliet Tretherne. I used to upbraid Juliet about
encouraging his advances, and I expressed my opinion of him in the
plainest language, at which she would smile in a preoccupied wav, and
would sometimes draw me to her and kiss me on the forehead.
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