"Well, there ain't many good enough for you, that's a fact, and so I tell 'em when they get to--get to--" Hugh looked up inquiringly, his face flashing as he guessed at what they got.
"Bless me, there's ain't many girls good for anybody.

I never saw but one, except my Nell, that was worth a picayune, and that was Alice Johnson." "Who?
Who did you say ?" And Hugh grew white as marble.
The colonel replied: "I said Alice Johnson, twentieth cousin of mine--blast that fly!--lives in Massachusetts; splendid girl--hang it all can't I hit him ?--there, I've killed him." And the colonel put up his whip, never dreaming of the effect that name had produced on Hugh, whose heart gave one great throb of hope, and then grew heavy and sad as he thought how impossible it was that the Alice Johnson the colonel knew could be the Golden Haired.
"There are fifty by that name, no doubt," he said, "and if there were not, she is dead." Hugh dared not question the colonel further, and was only too glad when the latter said: "If I understand you, I can have Rocket for five hundred dollars, provided I let you redeem him within a year.

Now that's equivalent to my lending you five hundred dollars out and out.

I see, but seeing it's you, I reckon I'll have to do it.

As luck will have it, I was going down to Frankfort this very day to put some money in the bank, and if you say so, we'll clinch the bargain at once," and the colonel began to count the amount.
Alice Johnson was forgotten in that moment when Hugh felt as if his very life was dying out.