Threecarriages followed in succession the homeward road; the first contained Patty and Putnam; the second Clarence Toxteth and Miss Purdy; the third, Burleigh Blood and Flossy.
Young Blood found himself unexpectedly at his ease with his companion. The awe he felt for her as a stranger, and because of her quaint speech, had largely worn away. Still he regarded her rather doubtfully, as one looks at something dangerous to handle. Her tiny figure, her quick, nervous motions, reminded him constantly of a humming-bird, and he had a fearful if vague sense of the danger of crushing her by the mere force of his huge presence. The great honest fellow, almost a giant, could have taken her up with one hand, his gentlest movements seeming overpoweringly forcible when exerted in behalf of hispetitecompanion; and of this he was unpleasantly conscious.
Burleigh had known Patty Sanford from childhood in the way that everybody in Montfield knew everybody else. They had been companions at school, where Burleigh was only one of a dozen who believed themselves ready to lay down their lives for the doctor's daughter, or—a far greater proof of devotion—toshare with her their last apple, or handful of chestnuts. It is true that the social status of the Bloods, so far as such distinctions were marked in Montfield, was below that of the Sanfords; and Miss Mullen of Mullen House, the aristocrat of the village, wondered that Patty could associate with everybody as she did. But Patty, while secretly proud enough of her family, was democratic at least in the treatment of her admirers; and young Blood found as warm a welcome at the doctor's cottage as did Clarence Toxteth. With Patty, Burleigh was less shy than with any girl of his acquaintance, and yet was far from being at his ease, even in her presence. With her cousin, whom he had known only a few weeks, he was at first painfully diffident. Her manner so completely ignored this shyness, however, that it was gradually wearing away.
"I do hope Patty's ankle isn't hurt so that she can't take her part in the theatricals," Flossy said as they rode along.
"Dr. Sanford thought," he returned, "that is, he said, she'd be all right in a week or so, if she'd keep still."
"She never did keep still," answered Flossy. "But I'll do my best to make her now. Did you ever play in amateur theatricals?"
"I? Oh, no! of course not."
"There's no of course about it; only of course you'll play now. This bashful man, you know, is just your part."
"This bashful man?" he repeated doubtfully.
"Oh, yes! In this play, you know. Patty and I both say you'll do it capitally."
In despite of her assurance that he knew, Burleigh was painfully conscious that he did not; and, indeed, her way of designating every thing as "this, you know," or "that other, you know," was sufficiently confusing.
"I have had such fun in theatricals!" Flossy ran on, not noticing his puzzled expression. "We played 'Trying It On,' one Christmas, and I was Mr. Tittlebat. I was so nervous, that I repeated stage-directions and all. And such a time as I had to get a man's suit small enough!"
Her companion involuntarily glanced from his own figure to the tiny maiden by his side. She understood the look, and burst into a gay laugh.
"Oh, dear! I should have been lost in your clothes," she cried. He blushed as red as the big clover she had pinned in his buttonhole, and modestly cast down his eyes.
"In that other, you know," she chattered on, "they wanted me to take the part of Jane. That was after I had been Mr. Tittlebat, and I felt insulted."
"Insulted? Why, because it wasn't a man's part?"
"Oh, dear, no! I don't like to act men's parts. But I hunted and hunted and hunted, and it was forever before I could find it; and then this was all it was. [EnterJane.] Mrs.Brown.—Jane, bring my bonnet. [ExitJane.] [EnterJane.] Mrs.Brown.—That will do, Jane. [ExitJane.] Of course I wouldn't take it."
"What was there insulting in that?" asked Burleigh, to whom the brevity of the part would have been a strong recommendation.
"Why, in the first place I couldn't find it; and then, when I did, it was only 'Exit Jane.' You wouldn't want to exit all the time, would you? I wouldn't 'exit Jane' for 'em."
"Well," he answered, laughing at her emphatic speech; "it is just as anybody feels: but I think I'd rather 'exit' than any thing else."
"Did you ever see 'Ruy Blas'?" Flossy asked. "You ought to see that. All the ladies cry; or at least they all take out their handkerchiefs: this man is so cruel, you know. And it's lovely where she says,—she's the queen, you know,—'Ruy Blas, I pity, I forgive, and I love you!' Oh, it's too lovely for any thing."
"Is that the place where the ladies all take out their handkerchiefs?"
"No, that isn't the timeIcry."
"Why not?" Burleigh asked, his bashfulness forgotten. "Because you have shed all your tears?"
"Oh, no!" she answered. "But I never cry until the music strikes up."
In the carriage before Burleigh's, theatrical matters were also the subject of conversation.
"Of course, Patty can't take her part now," said Emily Purdy.
"Then we shall have to put off our play until she can," Clarence replied, somewhat to the discontent of his companion, who wished to be asked to take the part assigned to Patty.
A theatrical entertainment was to be given for the benefit of the Unitarian Church; that edifice being, so to speak, decidedly out at the elbows; and the young people of the society were all much interested.
"Of course," Miss Purdy said rather spitefully, "every thing must be put off for her. She needn't have been flirting with Mr. Putnam. I wonder if she is engaged to him."
Clarence should have been wise enough to let this pass unanswered; but his annoyance got the better of his prudence. He found it hard to forgive Patty's rejection of his invitation to the picnic; and before he thought he blurted out what he would instantly have been glad to recall.
"Of course not. She told me she thought him an old miser."
"Did she?" his companion cried, her eyes sparkling maliciously. "I didn't think she'd abuse a person behind his back, and then accept his invitations. If you only knew what she said about you!"
But Toxteth, in spite of the slip he had made, was a gentleman, and couldn't be brought to ask what Patty had said about him; so that, as Miss Purdy hardly thought it best to offer the information unsolicited, he remained forever in ignorance of the careless remark about his foppishness, which would have been envenomed by the tongue of the mischief-maker who longed to repeat it.
"I ought not to have told what Patty Sanford said," he remarked. "She didn't mean it. Indeed, I am not sure but I said it, and she only assented. Ofcourse it should never have been repeated. I beg you'll forget it."
"I never forget any thing," laughed Emily; "but I never should mention what was told me in confidence."
In the first carriage of the three, the lawyer and his companion rode for some time in silence. Each was endeavoring to imagine the thoughts of the other, and each at the same time carrying on an earnest train of reflections. With people in love, silence is often no less eloquent than speech, and perhaps is more often truly interpreted.
Mr. Putnam was the first to speak.
"You are twenty-one," he said, with no apparent connection.
"I am twenty-one," she answered, not failing to remark that the words showed that his thoughts had been of her.
"A girl at twenty-one," he continued, "is old enough to know her own mind."
"This girl at twenty-one certainly knows her own mind."
"Humph! I suppose so—or thinks she does."
Another long silence followed, more intense than before. Both were conscious of a secret excitement,—an electric condition of the mental atmosphere. At last Putnam, as if the question of ages was of the most vital interest, spoke again.
"I am thirty-two," he said.
"You are thirty-two," she echoed.
"Do you think that so old?"
"That depends"—
"Well, too old for marrying, say?"
"That depends too," she answered, her color heightening, in spite of her determination not to look conscious.
"To marry," he continued, "say,—for the sake of example merely,—say a girl of twenty-one. You ought to know what a lady of twenty-one would think."
"I know a great deal that I should never think of telling."
"But I am in earnest. You see this is an important question."
"You had better ask the lady herself."
"Thelady? I saidalady. Besides, as I said this morning (pardon my repeating it), 'the little god of love won't turn the spit—spit—spit.'"
"Of course you are not too old," Patty said with a sudden flash of the eyes, "to marry a girl of twenty—if she would accept you."
"I said twenty-one," he returned; "but the difference isn't material. You've evaded the question. What I want to get at is, wouldn't she think I was too old to accept?"
"Not if she loved you."
"But if she didn't?"
"Why, then she wouldn't marry you, if you were young as Hazard, as big as Burleigh, and as gorgeously arrayed as Clarence Toxteth. You had best not let any woman know, however, that you think her love meaner than your own."
"I do not understand."
"A woman, if she loved a man at all, would find it hard to forgive him for believing her unwilling to share his bitter things as well as his sweet."
"Um! But suppose he thought it selfish to ask her to share the bitter things?"
"That is like a man!" Patty said impatiently. "But what nonsense we are talking! Won't it be funny to hear Bathalina condole with me? She'll quote 'Watts and Select' by the quantity, and sing the most doleful minors about the house to cheer me up. For every one of mother's signs she'll have a verse of Scripture, or a hymn."
"There is as much variety in love," Mr. Putnam said, returning to the subject they had been discussing, "there is as much variety in love as in candy."
"And as much difference in taste," she retorted. "For my part, I should hate a love that was half chalk or flour. But I don't wish to talk of love. I hope my friends will come and see me, now I am lame, or I shall die of loneliness."
"I'll send the Breck boys over," the lawyer said. "Hazard is very good company."
"Of course their uncle," she said demurely, "would come to look after them."
"Perhaps," he replied. "But who would look after their uncle?"
Whateverelse Flora Sturtevant might or might not be, she at least was energetic, and what she had to do she did at once and with her might. Although she returned from the picnic at Mackerel Cove very weary, she did not rest until she had written a dainty missive to Jacob Wentworth, the brother of her late step-father. The answer came on the evening of the following day in this telegram:—
"Will be in Boston Saturday. Come to office at twelve."Jacob Wentworth."
"Will be in Boston Saturday. Come to office at twelve.
"Jacob Wentworth."
It was to meet this appointment that Miss Sturtevant passed leisurely down Milk Street about noon Saturday. The signal-ball upon the Equitable Building fell just as she passed the Old South Church; but she seemed not disposed to quicken her steps.
"Uncle Jacob will be cross if he has to wait; but I think I like him best a little cross. I wonder how he'll act. I must make my cards tell: I never shall hold a better hand, and the stake is worth playing for. How tremendously hot it is! How do people live in the city in August! Next summer I'll be at the seashore, if this goes through all straight. I shall be independent of everybody then."
Musing in this agreeable fashion, Miss Flora turned the corner of Congress Street, and walked on until she entered one of those noble buildings which have sprung up since the great fire, making Boston's business streets among the finest in the world. Miss Sturtevant adjusted her dress a little in the elevator, looked to the buttons of her gloves, and glanced over her general trigness, as might an admiral about to go into action. An inward smile softened her lips without disturbing their firmness, as she entered an office upon the glass of whose door was inscribed her uncle's name.
"Good-morning, uncle Jacob," she said brightly.
A white-haired man, with small, shrewd eyes which twinkled beneath bushy brows, looked up from the letter he was writing. His forehead was high and retreating, his nose suggestive of good dinners; and his whole bearing had that firmness only obtained by the use as a tonic of the elixir of gold. Flora had been from childhood forbidden to address him as uncle, and he understood at once that she felt sure of her ground to-day, or she would not have ventured upon the term. The lawyer paused almost perceptibly before he answered her salutation.
"Good-morning," he said. "Sit down."
"Thanks," answered the visitor, leisurely seating herself. "This office is so much nicer than your old one! I hope you are well, uncle."
"I am well enough," he returned gruffly. "What is this wonderful business which brings you to Boston?"
"You know I always do you a good turn when I can," remarked Miss Sturtevant by way of introduction.
"Yes," he assented. "You find it pays."
"You may or may not remember," she went on with great deliberation, "that you once requested me to discover for you—or for a client, you said—what became of certain papers which you drew up for Mr. Mullen of Montfield."
"I remember," the other said, his eyes twinkling more than ever.
"I had hard work enough," Flora continued, "to trace them as far as I did, and little gratitude I got for my pains."
"You did not discover where the papers were?"
"I found that they had been in the possession of Mrs. Smithers."
"Her name," Mr. Wentworth remarked, pressing softly together the tips of his plump fingers, "is not Mrs. Smithers. She never married. It is best to be exact."
"Miss Clemens, then," said Flora. "I know now where those papers are."
"You do?" the old lawyer cried, at last showing some excitement. "Where are they?"
"That is my secret," she answered, with the faintest smile, and a nod of her head. "When is that directors' meeting?"
"Next Tuesday," replied Mr. Wentworth.
He knew his interlocutor well enough to allow her to take her own way in the conversation, fully awarethat she would not idly turn from the subject in hand.
"And you then decide whether to buy the Samoset and Brookfield Branch?"
"Yes," he said. "Do you object to telling me how you discovered that?"
"I have my living to earn," she answered, smiling, "and it is necessary that I keep my eyes and ears open. Could you promise me, if you chose, that the decision should be to buy the Samoset and Brookfield Branch?"
"If I chose, I dare say I could," the lawyer affirmed. "My own vote, and others upon which I can count, will turn the scale."
"Very well. Do you accept my terms?"
"By George!" exclaimed Wentworth, slapping his palm upon his knee. "What a long head you have, Flora! You are like your mother, and she was a devilish smart woman, or she wouldn't have married my brother."
"It would have been to my advantage," Flora said, "if she had taken him for her first husband, instead of her second. Those precious half-sisters of mine would hardly hold their heads so high now, if she had. But do you agree?"
"If I understand," he said, "you offer me your information for my vote."
"For your assurance," she corrected, "that the vote is affirmative."
"What is your game?" demanded the old man. "What assurance have I that your information is correct?"
"Only my word," she said coolly. "I will tell you the name of the person having those papers, and where that person is to be found, the day I have proof that the affirmative vote is passed. You do as you like about accepting my terms."
It is needless to narrate further the conversation between the two: suffice it to say that Miss Flora was in the end triumphant. The wily lawyer determined to find his own account in the purposed vote, by the immediate purchase of Samoset and Brookfield Railroad stocks. One question Miss Sturtevant asked before she left the office.
"Had these papers any relation to Mr. Breck or his property?" she asked.
"No," Mr. Wentworth answered, evidently surprised. "What put that into your head?"
"Nothing," she said. "Good-morning."
And the enterprising woman, going to the bank, drew every dollar she could raise, and then hastened to catch the afternoon train to Montfield.
"Frank Breck," she said to herself, as she rolled along, "you are hardly a match for me, after all."
Within the next few days Miss Flora was very busy. She astonished the business-men of Samoset, a village half a dozen miles west of Montfield, by going about, purchasing the old Samoset and Brookfield stock, which everybody knew to be worthless, and which was to be had for a song. The lady was full of a thousand affectations and kittenish wiles in her leisure hours; but, when attending to business, she showed the hard, shrewd nature which lay beneath this softexterior. She drove sharp bargains, and when, at last, the vote of the directors of the great Brookfield Valley Railroad to purchase the Branch became known, Miss Sturtevant's name was in every mouth, not always uncoupled with curses. Many a man and woman whose all had been sunk in the Branch found it hard to forgive this woman for the advantage she had taken; and she was accused of a sharpness not to be clearly distinguished from dishonesty; for country people see stock operations in a light very different from that of Wall Street. That Flora was not without consideration for the property of others, however, is proved by the following note, which she wrote the Sunday after her interview with Mr. Wentworth:—
Dear Mr. Putnam,—My interest in your welfare is too deep for me to stop to consider how you will regard my writing you. I heard in Boston yesterday, that the stock of the Samoset and Brookfield is likely to increase in value very soon. I tell you thisin strictest confidence, as I have heard it intimated that you own some of the stock.Very sincerely yours,Flora Sturtevant.
Dear Mr. Putnam,—My interest in your welfare is too deep for me to stop to consider how you will regard my writing you. I heard in Boston yesterday, that the stock of the Samoset and Brookfield is likely to increase in value very soon. I tell you thisin strictest confidence, as I have heard it intimated that you own some of the stock.
Very sincerely yours,Flora Sturtevant.
Thelife of Bathalina Clemens was one long wail in the past-potential tense. "I might have been" was the refrain of all her days.
"I might ha' been Peter Mixon's wife, if my sinful pride hadn't a made me high-minded," she said continually. "How'd I know he'd give up so easily, 'cause I said I wouldn't let him lick the ground I walked on?"
The nasal melancholy of camp-meeting minors floated after her angular form like the bitter odor from wormwood or tansy. She reproved the levity of those about her with an inner satisfaction at having "borne testimony;" and particularly did she labor with Patty, whose high spirits were a continual thorn to Bathalina.
"It's so like the Amorites and the Hittites and Hivites," she groaned, "to be always singing and laughing and dancing about! How'll you feel when you come to your latter end? Would you dance on your dying-bed?"
"Probably not," Patty answered, laughing more than ever; "but I can't tell."
The spraining of Patty's ankle seemed to Bathalinaa direct visitation of Providence in reproof for her vain merry-making.
"I knew some judgment would happen to you," the servant said. "'My sinfulness has been visited upon me.' If you'd only live as you'll wish you had when you come to stand around your dying-bed!"
"Bathalina," Patty said sedately, "I am glad you mention it. I intend to behave until my ankle gets better; and I wanted to ask you if you'd mind taking my place in the theatricals we are getting up."
"You may mock now," retorted Bathalina wrathfully; "but at the last you'll bite like an adder, and sting like a serpent.—Mrs. Sanford, I came to tell you that I am going this afternoon to the funeral of my cousin Sam's first wife's child."
"Is she dead?" asked Mrs. Sanford. "I hadn't heard of it; though, now, I remember I did hear a dog howl night before last."
"I suppose she's dead," the servant answered; "because, when I was over there Saturday, Jane said to me, says she, 'We sha'n't churn till after Emma dies.' And she wouldn't ha' said that if she warn't a-goin' to die soon. And, as that family always has their funerals Wednesday, I thought I better go over."
"But to-night is bread night," Mrs. Sanford objected; while Patty sank back in convulsions of laughter.
"Well'm, I'll mix it up early to-morrow morning."
"No," the housewife said decidedly; "none of your bread raised by daylight in my house. I'll see to it myself to-night. Grandmother Sanford is comingto-day; and she knows what good bread is, if anybody does."
"Mother," Patty asked, as the door closed behind Bathalina, "do you suppose Bath is as crazy as she seems? She talks like a perfect idiot."
"Well," her mother answered meditatively, "sometimes I think that perhaps maybe she isn't; and then, again, I don't know but after all I can't tell but she is."
Later in the forenoon Patty lay upon a light willow lounge which Will had placed for her on the piazza. It was a lovely summer's day. The bees hummed drowsily among the flowers, and Patty had drifted halfway from waking into sleeping. Through an opening in the vines which shaded the piazza, she watched the clouds moving slowly through the far, still spaces of blue ether, one shape insensibly changing into another as they passed.
The girl was thinking of nothing higher or greater than her suitors, perhaps having meditated sufficiently upon graver subjects in the days since her accident, now making almost a week. She was not counting her conquests; yet she had a pleasant consciousness of her power, and recalled with satisfaction the compliments bestowed upon her in words or attentions. The two nephews of Mr. Putnam, Frank and Hazard Breck, had the previous afternoon called upon her; and the younger was of old a devoted worshipper at her shrine. Hazard Breck was a fine, manly fellow a year Patty's junior. He believed himself madly in love with her; and indeed, in the fashionof pure-minded youth, he felt for her that maiden passion which is light and sweetness without the heat and wholesome bitter of a man's love.
As Patty lay watching the clouds, and enjoying the colors brought out by the sunlight as it filtered through the leafy screen, she heard the latch of the gate click. Without turning her head, she tried to guess whose step it was coming up the gravel-walk, and rightly concluded it must be that of Hazard Breck. He crossed the piazza, and came to her side.
"Good-morning," he said, in a tone having something of the richness of his uncle's voice. "Are you asleep, or awake?"
"Asleep," she answered, closing her eyes. "Isn't it a delicious morning to sleep and dream?"
"What do you dream?"
"That you have good news to tell."
"You are no witch to guess that. You knew it from my voice."
"What is it?"
"Now I can torment you," he said, "as you did me last night. Guess."
"One never guesses in sleep."
"Dream it, then."
"I should dream that the sky had fallen, and you had caught larks."
"No, I haven't, worse luck. But you'll never get it."
"Then tell me."
"It is about uncle Tom," he said after some further bantering. "He's had a windfall. The Samosetand Brookfield stock has gone up like a rocket, and made his fortune. Isn't that jolly!"
"I know nothing about stocks," she answered; "but I'm glad he's made his fortune."
"I'm just wild over it!" Hazard said. "It is so opportune!"
"Did he need it so much, then?" Patty asked, with a secret consciousness that she was pumping her guest.
"Uncle Tom is so generous!" Breck answered.
"He has not usually had that reputation," she returned, dropping the words slowly, one by one.
"I know," he said indignantly. "Of course I've no right to tell it, because he has always insisted that I should not. But I'd like you, at least, to know, and it can't do any harm to tell you now. He has supported not only aunt Pamela, but Frank and me; and of course, with two of us in college, it has been a hard pull on him."
"But I should think," she began, "that"—
"That we wouldn't have let him?" Hazard said as she hesitated. "I wonder—I've always wondered that we did. But he insisted, and said we could pay him back when we got our professions; and so we shall, of course."
Patty was silent. She was filled with self-reproach for having misjudged the lawyer. Why, from all her suitors, her heart had chosen this elderly-looking man, his hair already threaded with gray, she could have told as little as any one else. Love as a rule is so illogical, that it is strange the ancients did not givethe little god the female sex; though it is true they approximated toward it by representing him eternally blindfold. Something in Patty had instinctively recognized the innate nobility of Mr. Putnam's character, hidden beneath a somewhat cold exterior. Against the fascination which his personality exercised over her, she struggled as a strong will always struggles against the dominion of a stronger. She could not easily yield herself up, and often treated the lawyer with less tenderness, or even courtesy, than the rest of her suitors. At the revelations of Hazard, however, she was much softened; and had Tom Putnam been at hand—but he was not; and it is idle to speculate upon chances, albeit the whole world is poised upon anIF, as a rocking-stone upon its pivot.
Thesilence of the pair upon the piazza was broken by the arrival at the gate of Will, who had been to the station to meet grandmother Sanford. Patty started up as if to run to meet her, but fell back.
"I forget that I am a cripple," she said.
"Mother, how do you do?" exclaimed Mrs. Sanford, appearing in the doorway. "Do come up on to the piazza. I don't want to meet you on the stairs, or I'll have a disappointment."
"Thee art as full of foolish superstitions as ever, daughter Britann," the old lady said, coming slowly up the steps on Will's arm.
"You dear little grandmother!" Patty cried. "How glad I am you've come!"
"I am glad to come," her grandmother answered, "and grieved much to find thee lame. How dost thee do to-day?"
"Oh! I'm nicely. My ankle isn't painful at all. It would have been well if I could have kept still. This is Hazard Breck, grandmother, Mr. Putnam's nephew; you remember him.—And this, Hazard, is the nicest grandmother that ever lived."
"Thee art the nephew of an honest man," the old lady said, "though he is somewhat given to irreverent speech."
"He is the best of uncles, at least," Hazard answered warmly.
"He is a very respectable old gentleman," Mrs. Sanford said patronizingly.
Will laughed meaningly, and glanced at his sister, whose cheeks flushed. Mrs. Sanford's antipathy to the lawyer was no secret.
"Mr. Putnam is the finest man I know," Patty said, a trifle defiantly, "except my father."
"Indeed?" Will said teasingly. "Grandmother," he added, "I think it is all nonsense about Patty's ankle. She only makes believe, so as to have everybody come and see her. She has a regiment of callers about the house all the time."
"Hazard," Patty said, "if mother has no objections, I wish you'd please toss Will into that bed of pinks."
"Objections!" exclaimed Mrs. Sanford. "Of course I've objections. Your own brother and the most thrifty bed of pinks I've got! Patience Sanford, I'm surprised at you!"
"If thee hast no objection, daughter Britann," grandmother Sanford said with her quiet smile, "I'll go in and rest a little."
The old lady was the mother of Dr. Sanford and of Mrs. Plant. She was a woman of strong character, and had adopted the Quaker faith after her marriage, being converted to it by the labors of a woman whohad nursed her through a long illness. In her youth, grandmother Sanford had perhaps been somewhat stern, as people of strong wills are apt to be: but age had mellowed her, as it does all sound fruit; and now she was so beloved by her friends and relatives, that they were ready to quarrel for her society to such a degree, that she declared she lived "on the circuit." She had keen perceptions, a quick sense of the ludicrous, and a kindly heart, which endeared her to all. Even Mrs. Sanford, who was undemonstrative in her affection for everybody else, brightened visibly whenever her mother-in-law came, and showed her pleasure in numerous kindly attentions. As for Patty, she worshipped her grandmother, who understood her as no one else but Dr. Sanford did. It was a peculiarity of the girl's to make few confidences; but to her grandmother she would talk of matters which she mentioned to no one else. Nor was the old lady less proud and fond of her grand-daughter; and the love between them was, as is always love between youth and age, a most beautiful thing to see.
Patty and Hazard Breck were scarcely left alone on the piazza, when a new visitor appeared, in the person of Burleigh Blood. The young man had been to the depot to see about the freight of the products of the dairy-farm which he owned in company with his father, and had chosen to improve his opportunity by calling at the Sanford cottage. At sight of him, young Breck said good-by, and betook himself home by a short cut across the garden, much to Patty's disappointment, as she wished to hear further concerninghis uncle's good fortune. She, however, sped the parting, and welcomed the coming guest with a smile; and the young farmer sat bashfully on the steps of the piazza before her.
"How big you are, Burleigh!" she said, glancing admiringly over his breadth of shoulder and chest, the strong head, and the firm, large hands.
"You told me that the other day," he said ruefully; "but I can't help it."
"Help it? Of course not. What makes you think I meant any thing but praise?"
"I thought I was so big and clumsy, that you must be making fun of me."
"Oh, no! I was only thinking what a mere morsel Flossy looked beside you at the picnic."
He blushed, and pulled at his hat, after his usual awkward fashion; and at that moment, as if summoned by a call-boy for her part in the play, Flossy herself appeared in the doorway, bowl of pop-corn, and all.
"Good-morning, Mr. Blood," she said. "Can you tell why mutton always tastes catty? As if it were cats, I mean."
"I—I never tasted any cats," he said with the utmost earnestness.
"No? Well, I wouldn't. But why didn't you come to inquire how I felt after the picnic? Montfield manners and bonnets both need to be issued in a revised edition."
"Montfield manners are perfect," Patty said, coming to the rescue of the guest. "They cannot be improved.But you remember, Flossy, what you had to ask Burleigh."
"Of course you understand, Mr. Blood," Flossy said, "that a lady's request is a command."
"Yes, certainly."
"Very well. It is this I spoke to you about the other day, you know."
"I don't remember what you mean."
"You are to be my lover in this play."
"What?"
"You don't look over-charmed at the prospect," Flossy remarked coolly. "You ought to feel honored. So saying, I will eat a few kernels of corn. Have some, Patty?"
"But of course I can't act."
"Of course you can. I'll get the book for you now, so you can be studying your part. We don't have rehearsal until next week."
"You are to be Jonathan Cowboy in the play," Flossy continued, having produced the book. "Will is Mr. Bramble, and Ease Apthorpe his daughter. I'm to be Waitstill Eastman. I chose that because she has things to eat."
"Shall you eat pop-corn?" asked Patty.
"Really, I couldn't think of taking a part," Burleigh said.
"Nobody wants you to think of it," Flossy returned placidly. "It is settled that you are to have it. It is a bashful part, and, if you make any mistakes, people will think it is part of the play."
"'Vanity of vanities,'" said the voice of BathalinaClemens, who had approached unperceived. "'All is vanity.'"
"So are you," Flossy retorted.
"How came you home so soon?" Patty asked. "Didn't they have the funeral?"
"No," the doleful servant answered. "Emma ain't dead: so they had to put it off. Jane concluded to do her churning, after all; but she says she's in hopes to get through the burying by next Wednesday. And I should think she'd want to; for that'll finish up all the first wife's children. It'll naturally give her more time to look after her own."
"Did you ever hear any thing so atrocious!" exclaimed Patty, as the maid-servant disappeared round the corner of the house. "The way she talks about that funeral is more crazy than her usual speeches, and that is certainly needless."
"Don't names," Flossy asked pensively, "always convey a color to your mind, Mr. Blood?"
"Convey a color?"
"Yes. Like Caroline, you know: that always makes me think of pale yellow, and Susan of red, and Mary of blue."
"What nonsense!" laughed her cousin. "What color would Bathalina suggest?"
"That name," said Flossy, "always calls up a grayish, dirty green, like faded linsey-woolsey."
And at that moment the dinner-bell rang.
ThePutnam mansion, wherein the lawyer's ancestors had lived and died for several generations, stood next to the cottage of Dr. Sanford; or rather the two places were back to back, each facing one of the two principal of the village streets. To reach either house from the more distant thoroughfare, a short cut was taken across the grounds of the other, right-of-way being conceded by mutual agreement.
People in Montfield retired early; and thus it happened that at ten o'clock of the Friday night following the coming of grandmother Sanford the lights were out in the doctor's cottage, and sleep was supposed to have descended upon all the dwellers therein. Patty had not, however, retired. A thunder-storm was slowly rising out of the west, with golden fringes of lightning about its dark edges; and she sat at her open window to watch its progress. The unusual restraint imposed upon her by her lameness had made her restless; and she longed to steal out of the house, and run races across the orchard as she had done when a child. The sultry closeness of the night made her take a fan, with which she did little but tap impatiently upon the window-ledge. She was not thinkingconnectedly, but in a vague way unpleasant thoughts and feelings crowded tumultuously through her brain like the crew of Comus.
Suddenly in the garden below she heard voices. A man was speaking earnestly, but in a tone too low to be audible at the window above. A woman answered him, the pair seeming to discuss something with much emphasis. Her curiosity greatly excited by so unusual a circumstance, Patty leaned out of the window to discover, if possible, who were the speakers.
"Well, it's the Lord's will," she heard the woman's voice say. "And I, for one, ain't a-going to run a muck agin it."
"It is Bathalina!" the listener said to herself. "Who in the world can she be talking to?"
She leaned farther from her window, but by an unlucky movement of her arm sent her fan fluttering down to the gravel walk below. The speakers departed in different directions like phantoms, and Patty was left once again to her own reflections. At first she speculated upon the possible nature of the interview she had interrupted; then her thoughts came back to her fan. It chanced to be one painted by an artist-cousin, and one of which she was fond: a thunder-storm was rapidly approaching, and the fan likely to be ruined. Her ankle was fast recovering, and she was not long in determining to go down into the garden for her property. With the aid of the furniture and the stair-railings she got safely down to the side-door, cautiously unbolted it and slipped out. The fan was only a few steps from the door, but a rolling-stonelay in wait for the lame ankle, and gave it so severe a turn that Patty sank down a miserable heap upon the ground. She sat there a moment to recover herself, and then crawled back to the door-steps. Seated here, she gazed ruefully at the fan, a white spot upon the dusky walk, and, coddling her aching ankle in her hands, wondered how she was to regain her room.
At that moment brisk steps sounded on the walk, approaching the spot where she sat. A tall form defined itself amid the darkness, pausing before her.
"Good-evening," said the voice of Tom Putnam. "Is it you, Patty?"
"Yes. It is I."
"Would it be polite to ask if you walk in your sleep?"
"I can't walk awake at any rate," she replied, half laughing and half crying, "whatever I may do in my sleep."
"Then, you must have come here for air in your dreams."
"I came after that fan, and I've twisted my foot over again."
He restored the fan, and then seated himself at her feet on the lowest step.
"It is fortunate I took this way home," he said coolly. "I hear that you think I am miserly."
"What?" she exclaimed in surprise.
"I am told that you pronounce me miserly," he repeated. "I am very sorry, for I mean to ask you to be my wife."
Instead of answering this strange declaration, Pattycovered her face with her hands and burst into tears. He laid his fingers lightly upon her hair, smoothing it with a caressing motion. Surprise, physical pain, anger, and love were all oddly mingled in Patty's mind. She knew that she loved this man, and she was bitterly angry with herself for having misjudged him. She was no less angry with him for knowing the latter fact, of which Emily Purdy had taken care that he should not remain ignorant. She had, too, that Amazonian repugnance to the caress of a lover which is often inborn in strong personalities. She shook off the lawyer's touch as if it were fire.
"I misjudged you," she said, by an angry effort controlling her tears, "and I am not too proud to own it. Now forget it."
"Very well," he said, "it is forgotten. But your opinion is every thing to me, for I have loved you these dozen years, Patty. I've watched you growing up, and loved you more and more every year. I've had the words in my mouth a hundred times; but now I am able to marry, and I ask you to be my wife."
However cool these words may seem in black and white, they were intense as Tom Putnam spoke them, his rich voice gathering force as he proceeded. He was moved from that calm which Flossy Plant declared to be an essential law of his existence. The passion he felt was too old, too well defined, to come stammering and broken from his tongue; but his voice trembled, and he bent forward until his hot breath touched her cheek. He did not again attempt to caress her,but she felt that his eyes were fixed upon her with a keenness that could almost pierce the darkness. Still her mood was a defensive one. That she fought against herself no less than against him, only added strength to her determination not to yield.
"You had little faith in the depth of my love," she said at last, after a silence which seemed to both very long, "if you thought I should be afraid of poverty with you."
"Then you do love me!" he exclaimed, in joyous, vibrating tones.
"I did not say so," she retorted quickly. "I was talking of your feelings, not mine."
"I had no right to ask you to share poverty," he said. "I loved you too well to do it."
"That is because you looked only at your own side," she persisted. "If I loved a man, I should be glad if he were poor. I should delight to show him that I loved him better than any thing money would buy. Oh! I should be proud and glad to work for him if I need—and you thought I wouldn't do it!"
He caught her hand, and kissed it passionately.
"You know it is not that," he said. "I never thought any thing of you but that you were the noblest woman I knew; but I was not worth so much hardship—I couldn't bring it on you. But since you love me, I can wait."
"I never said I loved you! I—I don't."
"I know better," said he, springing up; "but let that go. It is beginning to rain, and sentiment mustgive place to reason. How shall you get into the house?"
"But you must not go away thinking I love you," she said weakly.
"How can you help it?" he returned. "How shall you get back to your room?"
"If I only could wake Flossy, she'd help me."
"Which is her window?"
"The one over the rosebush."
He took up a handful of pebbles, and threw them lightly against the panes until Flossy came to the window.
"Who's there?" she called timidly.
"It's I," Patty answered. "Come down."
"What on earth!" began Flossy.
"Come quick, and keep quiet."
"She is coming," Putnam said. "Good-night, Patty. If you knew how I love you!"
He kissed her hand again, and was gone just in time to escape Flossy.
"How did you hit my window from the door-step?" the latter asked as the two girls climbed slowly the stairs.
"By sleight of hand," her cousin answered. "Good-night. Thank you very much. I want to get to bed and to sleep before it begins to lighten any worse."
But how could she sleep with those two kisses burning like live coals upon her hand?
Pattyslept late the following morning, and before she was well awake the sense of something strange and sad was present in her mind. She opened her eyes, and slowly recalled the conversation of the previous night, with the most mingled feelings. That Tom Putnam loved her was a new, keen joy; but bitter indeed was it to remember how she had met the proffer of his heart. It was true he had not accepted her negative; but all the combativeness of the girl's disposition was aroused, and she felt something of the martyr spirit of men determined to die for a cause they know lost or hopeless. She felt that nothing would make her retract her denial; that she could not do so and retain her self-respect. And yet an inner double-consciousness knew that some time she meant to yield, and that she hoped for some fortunate turn of circumstances to bring about the means of graceful submission.
She dressed herself slowly and sadly, until, catching sight of her lugubrious face in the glass, she laughed in spite of herself, and determined to shake off her melancholy.
She descended to breakfast humming a gay air, andtrying to appear as if she were no more lame than upon the day previous. No one but grandmother Sanford noticed that her gayety was forced; but the beautiful old Friend with silvery hair and snowy kerchief possessed a shrewd head and a tender heart, quick to detect and to sympathize with pain.
"Grand-daughter," she said after breakfast, when they were alone together, "something troubleth thee."
"Me, grandmother?" Patty began with affected surprise. But there was about the other a candor which enforced frankness in return. "It is nothing that can be helped," Patty said, sighing, "and indeed it is nothing to tell of."
"Thee must have confidence in thy grandmother, Patience, if so be that I can ever serve thee."
"I shall, I do. Grandmother, I"—
The door opened, and admitted Flossy and her aunt.
"I can trust the maid to clean the parlor," Mrs. Sanford was saying impressively; "but the cellar I must see to myself."
"Yes," Flossy returned, "and that reminds me, Aunt Britann: can you tell why a cat's breath always smells fishy?"
"It cleared off in the night," her aunt continued, without taking the slightest notice of the whimsical question, "and so ain't likely to stay pleasant."
"Beech-nuts," Flossy said in the same rambling way, "used to be good to eat in school, they took up so much time. But then they have a sort of apologetic taste, as if they'd be bigger if they could."
"And horse-chestnuts," added her aunt, "are so good for rheumatism."
"Mercy!" cried Patty. "Are you both insane? You talk like two crazy Janes."
"I'd like to be a crazy Jane," Flossy said reflectively. "I wonder what they eat? Grandmother, did you bring those old-fashioned things with you? We are counting on them for our play. So saying, I gracefully fling myself into a chair. I think I could wear your dresses, grandmother."
"I brought them," the old lady answered with a twinkle in her eye. "Though I fear 'tis encouraging thee in vain and frivolous follies."
"If we don't go into vain and frivolous follies until you encourage them," Patty cried, "we may live to grow as solemn as Bathalina herself."
"It seems to me," Flossy put in, "that Mademoiselle Clemens has a dreadful 'hark-from-the-tombs-a-doleful-sound' air this morning."
"Why"—her cousin began, as there flashed through her mind the remembrance of the interview she had interrupted on the previous night. Her own troubles had until now driven it out of her mind.
"Well, what?" Flossy asked.
"Nothing. Let's look at the dresses now. Can't Flossy get them, grandmother?"
The costumes were produced in a hair-covered trunk which Flossy and Mrs. Sanford with some difficulty dragged into the sitting-room. When it was opened, a delightful odor of lavender and camphor and sweet-grass was diffused through the air; whichgrew more and more pungent as from the trunk were taken delicious old gowns of Canton crape, broidered kerchiefs, caps, and hand-bags.
"That corn-colored crape is just the thing for me," Patty cried. "Isn't it lovely! Oh, you vain old grandmother! you are as gray as a sparrow now, but you used to go arrayed in purple and fine linen."
"I was not weaned from the worldliness of fine dress then," the old lady said, smiling. "And they did say," she added, smoothing her dove-gray dress with innocent complacency, "that I was not uncomely in those days."
"You are the handsomest mother in the State now," said Dr. Sanford, who had entered. "Patty, what is that bundle of papers?"
A packet of papers yellowed by age lay in the bottom of the trunk, and Patty took them up.
"Some of the letters grandmother had in her philandering days, I suppose. Shall I open them, grandmother?"
"Give them to me. Thee art a sad, giddy girl, grand-daughter.—They are old papers of thy father's, Charles. I haven't seen them this forty years for aught I know."
"Let me see them, mother," Dr. Sanford said. "This is father's land-grant for serving in the war of 1812."
"I never knew grandfather was in the war of 1812," said Patty. "Was he wounded?"
"Wounded," repeated grandmother Sanford, laughing. "There came a report that the British werecoming to Quinnebasset where he lived, and a company of men was raised. They went down to Edgecomb, and had a camp for four or five weeks, and then came home again."