As for Walter himself, he was only too glad to keep silent on the matter, and let it die out; and so were the family generally.  There was one, however, from whom Walter looked for sympathy, and even for a measure of approbation--this was his aunt.  In the evening, after the article in the county paper on his challenge and its results had been read with severe comments by his father at the breakfast-table, he found Miss Huntingdon sitting alone in the summer-house.  Having cut two or three small slips off a laurel, he brought them to her, and, as he sat down by her side, said, half mournfully, half playfully, "Auntie, I want you to make me a laurel crown or chaplet of these."