"We are so situated--each alone, that perhaps we might--we might, ah--marry--to our mutual advantage?"
"_Marry?_"
"Yes," William said, earnestly; "I should be pleased to marry, Lydy. I need a home. My health is not very good, and I need a home. You need a home, also."
"Indeed I don"t!" she said; "I"ve got a home, thank you."
"I haven"t," William said; and Lydia"s blue eyes softened. "I am not very strong," he said ("though I see no reason why I should not live to old age); but I want a home. Won"t you take me, Lydy?"
Miss Lydia frowned and sighed. "I am very well satisfied as I am," she said; "but perhaps that is a selfish way to look at it."
"Yes, it is," he told her, earnestly; "and you didn"t use to be selfish, Lydia."
Miss Lydia sighed again. "I suppose I could make you comfortable, William."
"Do take me, Lydy," he entreated.
And somehow or other, before she quite knew it, she had consented.
As soon as the word was spoken, William arose with alacrity. "I don"t like to be out in the night air," he said, "so I"ll say good-night, Lydy. And, Lydy--shall we, for the moment, keep this to ourselves?"
"Oh yes," said Miss Lydia, getting very red, "I"d rather, for the present." Then, smiling and friendly, she went out with him, bare-headed, to the gate. There William hesitated, swallowed once, rubbed his hands nervously, and then suddenly gave her a kiss.
Miss Lydia Sampson jumped. "Oh!" she said; and again, "_Oh!_"
And then she ran back into the house, her eyes wet and shining, her face flushed to her forehead. She sat down by the table and put her hands over her eyes; she laughed, in a sort of sob, and her breath came quickly.
"I hadn"t thought of it--that way," she whispered to herself. And somehow, as she sat there by her kitchen table, she began to think of it that way--Miss Lydia was very young! ... Oh, she would try and make him happy; she would try and be more orderly; she would try to be good, since her Heavenly Father had given back to her the old happiness.
And that night she did not bid the picture good-night.
Mr. Rives was himself not without emotion. It was many years, he reflected, since his lips had touched those of a female, and the experience was agreeable--so agreeable that he wished to repeat it as soon as possible; and, furthermore, he felt anxious to know that Lydia had put the gold in a safe place. But when he called the next day he was a little late, because, as he explained to Miss Lydia, he had had to wait for the mail. She met him with a new look in her innocent, eager eyes, and her face was shy and red. As she sat sewing, listening vaguely, she would glance at him now and then, as if, until now, she had not seen him since that day of parting, thirty-one years ago--the thirty-one years which had blotted Amanda"s field from her memory. The old happiness, like a tide long withdrawn, was creeping back, rising and rising, until it was overflowing in her eyes. This puffy gentleman, with his tight, smiling mouth, was the William of her youth--and she had never known it until last night! She had thought of him during the last month or two only as an old friend who needed the care which her kind heart prompted her to give; and lo! suddenly he was the lover who would care for her.
"I was sorry, my dear Lydia, to be late," said Mr. Rives, in his soft voice; "I was detained by waiting for the mail."
Miss Lydia said, brightly, that it didn"t matter.
"But it was worth waiting for," William a.s.sured her. "I have done a good piece of business. (Not that it will make me richer; I have so many obligations to meet!) But it was a fortunate stroke."
"That is good," said Miss Lydia.
"A female in a distant city, where I own a poor little bit of real estate--nothing of any value, Lydia; I am a poor man--"
"That"s no difference," she told him, softly.
"--this female, a widow, and foolish (as widows always are)," William said, with a little giggle, "asked me to sell her a house I owned. She wished, for some reason, to purchase in that locality. I named the market price. I did so, by letter, a fortnight ago. I believe she thought it high; but that was her affair. She would have to sell certain securities to purchase it, she said. But as I wrote her--"my dear madam, that"s your business."" Mr. Rives laughed a little. Miss Lydia looked up, smiling and interested. "Yes," said Mr. Rives--"I didn"t urge it. I never urge, because then I can"t be blamed if things go wrong. But I held my price. That is always good policy--not to drop a dollar on price. So she"s bought it. She made a payment yesterday to bind the sale. Not that I feel any richer, for I must immediately apply the money to the purchase of other things."
"That"s nice," Miss Lydia said.
"I guess it is," William agreed; "I happen to know that a boiler factory is to be erected on the rear lot."
"But will she like that--the poor widow?" Miss Lydia said.
Mr. Rives laughed comfortably. "Ah, Lydy, my dear, in business we do not ask such questions before making a sale. _I_ like it. In three months that bit of property will have shrunk to an eighth of its selling price to-day." Mr. Rives"s eyes twinkled with satisfaction.
"But--_William!_" said Miss Lydia. Suddenly she grew pale. "William,"
she said, "it seems to me you ought to have told the poor widow."
"Lydia, a lady cannot understand business," William said, with kindly condescension, but with a slight impatience. "Don"t you see, if I had told her, she would not have made the purchase?"
Miss Lydia was silent, stroking the gathers of her cambric with a shaking needle. Then she said, in a low voice, "I suppose she wouldn"t."
William nodded encouragingly. "You"ll learn, Lydia. A married lady learns much of business methods through her husband. Though they don"t profit by it, I notice; widows are always foolish. Not that--that you will be likely to be--to be foolish," he ended, hastily, frowning very much.
Lydia went on sewing in silence. The color did not come back into her face, which caused William to ask her anxiously how she was.
"You are sure you are healthy, Lydia, aren"t you?" he said.
Miss Lydia, without looking at him, said she was. When he had gone, she stopped sewing and glanced about her in a frightened way; then she put her hands over her eyes and drew in her breath, and once she shivered. She sat there for a long time. After a while she got up and went over to the picture of Mr. William Rives and stood looking at it; and as she looked her poor, terrified eyes quieted into tears and she straightened the bit of box with a tender hand, and then she suddenly bent down and kissed the slim gentleman behind the misty gla.s.s.
The next day when she met her lover she was cheerful enough. It was at the front door of the Tavern; Dr. Lavendar was there, too, waiting for the morning stage for Mercer.
"Well! well! So I am going to have company, am I?" he said, for Miss Lydia was waiting for it, too. Her bonnet was on one side, her shabby jacket, fading from black to green on the shoulders, was split at the elbow seams, and the middle finger of each glove was worn through; but her eyes were shining with pleasure.
"Yes," she said, nodding; "I"m going."
Her presence seemed to be a surprise to Mr. Rives, who had strayed forth from the breakfast-room to see the stage start.
"You are going to Mercer?" he said, his small smile fading into an astonished question.
"Yes," Miss Lydia said, laughing, and suddenly she gave a little jump of happiness. "I haven"t been to Mercer for nine years. Oh, dear!
isn"t it just delightful!"
"But, why?" William persisted, in an amazed aside.
"Oh, that"s the secret!" cried Miss Lydia, clambering into the stage; "you"ll know sometime."
"I suppose you wish to arrange for the alterations of your house?"
William said; "but considering the stage fares back and forth-- Oh, there is Dr. Lavendar."
He came round to the other side of the stage, smiling very much.
"Well, sir, good-morning! good-morning, sir!"
"h.e.l.lo," Dr. Lavendar said.
Mr. Rives rubbed his hands. "I--I was about to say, Dr. Lavendar--that little matter between us--it"s of no importance, of course; quite at your convenience, sir; I don"t mean to press you--but at your convenience, sir."
"What are you talking about?" Dr. Lavendar said, with a puzzled blink.