"I think so, sir."
"Don"t call me sir, child. What makes you do so?"
"There is nothing else I can call you, is there,--sir."
"Ah!" said Mr. Foxley. He lay back at full length on the gra.s.s and put his hands over his eyes. The river rippled on and Milly watched him anxiously. "Is the leaf there still, Milly?"
"Yes, sir."
"Now!" said Mr. Foxley in a warning tone. "I tell you I won"t have it."
"No, sir--I beg your pardon, Mr. George."
"Nor that either," said Mr. Foxley, slowly rising into a sitting posture again. He had another poke at the yellow leaf. "Call me Dacre, my child, will you?" Milly no longer watched him with those loving, anxious, eyes.
She was trembling from head to foot and had she spoken, she must have wept. Mr. Foxley"s voice was of itself enough to make any woman weep, it was so soft, so tender, so subdued and indrawn. Once more he said, "Call me Dacre, my child!" That pleading voice, so low, so musical, and that it should plead to her? They were so close together that he could feel her tremble. Weak as he was, he was the stronger of the two for a moment, and turning slightly towards her met her rapturous eyes, and heard her call him the name he wanted to hear. The same instant they kissed, a long thrilling dark-enfolding kiss that was the first Milly had ever known from a man and might have been, for its purity and restraint, the first also that he had ever given to a woman.
"Have I found my haven too, like the wise leaf of autumn? Have I! Tell me, my child, my darling!"
"O sir, dearest sir--I mean, dear Dacre, it is I who have found mine. If indeed you care for me, sir!"
Mr. Foxley laid his head just on her shoulder, then let it slide into her lap, taking her trembling hands and putting them over his eyes.
"I do more than care for you, my child. I love you. Stoop and kiss me.
There. Don"t take your head away again like that. Leave it. Your face against mine. Your lips on mine. Is it a haven, child? Truly, yes or no?"
"Dear Dacre!"
"Well!"
"You know it is. And I have always wanted so much to--to--care for you, but I did not dare."
"Dare! There is no dare about it my child. If you will give me your young life--how old are you now, love?"
"Nineteen," whispered Milly into his ear.
"Only nineteen, and such a tall girl, with such long hair--if you will give it to me and be happy in giving it, child, that must be thought of, there is no one else--"
"You know there is not, sir."
"Then I will do all I can to deserve it. And n.o.body must call you Milly any more. You are Mildred now. Miss Mildred if you like and soon, very soon, to bear another name, mine. It is a good one, child."
"I am sure of it, dear Dacre, and too good--far too good--for me."
"Do you know how old I am, my child?"
"I heard your brother say."
"And did he dare? What did he say it was, my age?"
"He said--you were forty-one."
"Then he was out. It is more than that I am exactly forty-three; I say exactly, for, Milly, this is my birthday, and--I cannot hope--neither of as must dare to hope, child--that I shall see many more. You will marry me whenever I say, my love?"
The girl bent over him in a pa.s.sion of weeping.
"There is nothing I would not do for you, dear sir--"
"Except call me by my dearly-beloved third name!"
It began to turn cold as they sat by the stream and Milly or Mildred as she is henceforth to be called, drying her eyes, fell into a fever over her lover and besought him to return to the house.
Standing face to face, he put her arms around his neck.
"Before we go, dear child, you are sure you love me?"
"O do not ask me again, dear Dacre!"
"That is right. And you know how old I am?"
Another a.s.sent.
"And that you are to marry me whenever I say?"
"If I can."
"Of course you can. And that you are to give me all the love you possibly have to give and more and more. I shall be exacting!"
"Dear Dacre!"
"Very well. Remember all those clauses, and now take me back to the house. And some day, my child, I will tell you all my life and what it was--or rather who it was--that sent me out of England, dear England--"
"Ah! you love it still," murmured Mildred, looking at the ground.
"I shall always love it _now_, since I have found my happiness in Canada, but once I hated it, Milly, yes, I hated it!"
So was accomplished the wooing of Mr. George Foxley. He was earnestly and sincerely in love. The girl had grown up under his eye as it were and was in fact almost a part of himself already. Marriage would complete the refining and gilding process. The tones of her voice, her accent, her p.r.o.nunciation, her habits of sitting, of standing, of walking were all more or less unconsciously imitated from him, she had modelled herself upon him, she was indeed his "child" as he loved to call her. For a month these two people enjoyed as pure and perfect and isolated an happiness as can be experienced on earth. Then it became necessary to inform Mr. Joseph and worthy Mrs. c.o.x. As if Mr. Joseph and Mrs. c.o.x didn"t know! There are two things that nothing can hide in this life. One is, the light in the eyes of a girl who has found herself loved by the man she adores, and the other is, the unutterable content in the mien of that man himself. And there is no phase of pa.s.sion sweeter, nor purer, nor warmer, nor more satisfying, than that which is the result of a young girl"s affection for a man many years older than herself.
As for the telling, Mr. George, though he could talk fast enough and fluently enough to Mildred, hated much talk or fuss about anything and so made everything the easier by informing his brother, Mr. Joseph, by note. A few lines sufficed as preparation for the news and he ended by requesting him to purchase some small and inexpensive gift as from himself in appreciation of the occasion. Mr. Joseph with characteristic good taste and delicate feeling, concluded that flowers, though perishable, were the most appropriate purchase he could light upon, and consequently walked out from town a certain Sat.u.r.day afternoon late in November with a monster affair in smilax and roses in his hand. When it was placed, though not by himself, in Mildred"s hands she felt a disappointment she could not altogether conceal.
"Never mind," said Mr. George at full length on a sofa with Milly beside him on a chair. He did indeed prove a most exacting lover. For a long time her share of daily work in the Inn and out of it, had been growing less and less, until now she hardly did anything at all besides wait on her master, lover and friend, prepare what he eat, read to him, and sit by him for hours, never leaving him in the evenings till long after twelve and then it was understood that in case of night attacks of the dreadful pleurisy and asthma combined that were slowing killing him, she would always be at hand to come at the sound of his bell--or indeed his voice, for Milly, sleeping in the room opposite his own, always left both doors open and would lie fully dressed on her bed night after night, listening in the dark, with wide open eyes and strained ears, for the slightest cough or sigh that came from that worshipped one across the narrow hall.
"Never mind," said he on that Sat.u.r.day night "My brother _is_ busy just now. Don"t you remember, he found it difficult to come out last week.
It"s an awful grind for Joseph, poor Joseph! But he enjoys life, I think; at the present moment I expect he is flirting audaciously in town with some charming girl. Or some fearfully plain one. You never know who next, with my brother. He"ll turn up on Monday."
And Mr. Joseph did turn up on Monday. Farmer Wise had fetched some doctor from Orangetown on Sunday, who after examining his injury, p.r.o.nounced it incurable. Mr. Joseph was as stoical as Englishmen are generally expected to be and saw that it was absolutely imperative to tell his brother.
"I brought it on myself" he said to the farmer, "At least I try to believe I did. By Jove! to think--to think of some men! Well, I _must_ tell my brother."
When he did tell him late on Monday night, having been driven over by Farmer Wise himself, with his poor eyes bandaged and the st.u.r.dy farmer"s hand to guide him into the little back parlor where Mr. George and Mildred sat alone, for Mrs. c.o.x had been ordered out by that exacting gentleman as early as eight o"clock. Nothing but the presence of Mildred herself and the love divine and human that filled Mr. George"s breast to overflowing could have saved him from succ.u.mbing to the painful shock.