"I"ll borrow his suit to play chess on," added Carl.
"Hush! Carl,-don"t make fun of him," said Mrs. Lambert, smiling in spite of herself. "He seems to be a very good-hearted young man. Here he comes now."
All flushed and panting, Hyacinth appeared with his numerous burdens; but notwithstanding the fact that he was laden like a camel with his box, and stool and easel and umbrella, he insisted upon carrying Elise"s books, and even offered to manage the basket _somehow_.
Just why, each and every one of the Lamberts felt a distinct liking for the ridiculous P. Hyacinth it would be hard to say, yet that they did was evident. And on his part, he seemed upon half an hour"s acquaintance to feel as much at home with them all as if he had known them all his life.
As they rumbled and bounced back to town he chattered happily and confidingly to them all, but for Elise he reserved some of his choicest thoughts on the beauties of nature.
"Yes," said Mrs. Lambert, when he had finally parted from them at the road that led off in a short cut to Goldsboro, after a.s.suring them that he hoped for nothing more ardently than to renew his acquaintance with them, "a very nice young man, indeed. Where a good heart is so plainly beneath it one can forgive a small matter like a checker board waistcoat."
Elise meantime had been thinking over not the checker-board waistcoat but the orange-colored moustache,
"But it was certainly very brave of him to frighten that bull away," she remarked, half as if to herself. Carl shouted.
"A bull! You mean one poor old cow!"
Elise undisturbed by this interruption, added again in a tone as if she were arguing out his faults and virtues with herself,
"And even if his moustache _was_ queer, he-he had a very nice complexion." Then realizing that Jane had overheard this remark, she blushed a vivid pink, pretended to be looking for her work bag, and then asked, coldly,
"What are you laughing at, Janey?"
"I?" said Jane innocently; "_I_ wasn"t laughing. Gracious! I wasn"t _laughing_."
CHAPTER XVI-A FAMILY MATTER
The appearances of Mr. P. Hyacinth Montgomery at the Bakery became very frequent. His devotion to the family increased so rapidly that in a little while, not a day pa.s.sed without his calling to inquire solicitously for the health of all, to talk to Aunt Gertrude, present a bouquet of wild flowers to Granny (who always had to have them taken out of her room because they made her sneeze), and play with the twins like an affectionate uncle.
One day, having noticed the sign on the Bakeshop window, evidently for the first time, he inquired how the name there happened to be "Winkler,"
when the family name was "Lambert." He showed so much interest in the matter that Mrs. Lambert, flattered, gave him a short history of the family, to which he listened thoughtfully, once murmuring something about "coincidence."
"A quaint history," he remarked.
No member of the household was so blind as not to notice the preference that Mr. Montgomery showed for the society of Miss Elise, nor her tell-tale bashfulness when he plucked up sufficient courage to address her. But Mr. Lambert so plainly disapproved of the young man that not even his wife dared to open any discussion on the subject with him, for fear that a violent explosion would result. The old merchant maintained a stolid silence which all the pathetic efforts of Mr. Montgomery were powerless to thaw; though now and then Mr. Lambert was inspired to break it himself in order to utter sarcasms that reduced the poor young man to the last stage of discomfort and despair, and frequently caused Elise to weep bitterly in the solitude of her little bedroom. At the same time, she found something rather agreeable to her romantic taste in this role of unhappy love-lorn maiden.
"You are enjoying a great deal of leisure, Mr. Montgomery," Mr. Lambert remarked one evening, looking at the writhing youth over his spectacles.
"Is it a vacation-or a habit?"
P. Hyacinth smiled uncertainly, with a beseeching expression in his large blue eyes.
"Neither a vacation-nor yet exactly a-a habit, sir. I-I have my own philosophy of life, as you might say-"
"Ah!-a rather expensive one, I _do_ say," interrupted Mr. Lambert. "You are fortunate to be able to afford your philosophy. You expect to remain for long in these parts?"
"Not _very_ long-that is, I-my plans are not definite."
"My wife has given me to understand that you are-an _artist_?" Mr.
Lambert observed in a tone that almost overcame the miserable Hyacinth.
"Not really-that is-with me, sir, Art is an-an avocation, as you might say-"
"Ah! And what might your _vo_cation be?"
Mr. Montgomery waved his hand.
"That, sir, is inconstant, variable."
"I am not surprised that it _is_," remarked Mr. Lambert, and after that, he withdrew into his sh.e.l.l of icy silence, evidently waiting for further developments before he expressed his opinion of P. Hyacinth still more plainly.
In Jane, Elise found a highly sympathetic confidante, but even Jane was prompted to ask frankly,
"But what does he do, Elise? Does he sell his pictures?"
"He does," cried Elise. "He"s sold _three_! He did a perfectly lovely design once for a stationer"s advertising calendar-it was a picture of a girl, he said, with a lot of red roses in her arms. And he did a picture of some wild animals for a sportsman"s den."
"And what was the other one?"
"I-he didn"t tell me. We started to talk of something else. Oh, Jane, are you going to be horrid about him, too?" cried Elise, suddenly bursting into tears. Then, having grown quite artful where any defense of her suitor was necessary, she added, "Paul was an artist, and you didn"t laugh at _him_!" To Jane it seemed hardly worth while to point out what appeared to her to be the many differences between Paul and Mr.
Montgomery. So she disregarded Elise"s challenge, and putting both arms around her sister, said half-laughing,
"You know I"m not going to be horrid about him. I like him very much."
"Do you really, Janey?" asked Elise, brightening. "Oh, Jane you can"t imagine how unselfish he is. He-he said he"d give up everything for me.
He said he"d break stones in a quarry-boo-hoo!" And here Elise again dissolved into tears.
"Well, he won"t, dear," said Jane comfortingly, "I mean-that is-he probably won"t have to. There are so many other things that he could do, you see. What else did he say?"
"What else? Oh, well-not very much," answered Elise, blushing, and beginning to dimple. "He said that-he-he"d have to have a talk with father."
"Good gracious! Then he-oh, Elise!"
"Only he"s _so_ afraid of Papa. Of course, Janey, you must understand that Mr. Montgomery hasn"t-you know-hasn"t-that is, I know he likes me, but he hasn"t said so. He says he can"t, until he"s talked to Papa; he says that wouldn"t be honorable. And Papa won"t give him a chance!" And once more, Elise began to weep gently.
"Don"t cry, Elise darling-father _will_ give him a chance," said Jane; but these words of comfort only elicited sobs from Elise.
"That"s what I"m afraid of!" she wailed disconsolately.
This state of affairs seemed hopelessly complicated to Jane. It had no points in common with the romance of Lily and Mr. Sheridan, and in this fact Elise found a certain melancholy satisfaction. Elise of course kept Lily well-posted on the details of her own affair of the heart, and unconsciously a.s.sumed a certain superiority in recounting and describing her difficulties that almost irritated the sweet tempered and sympathetic Lily.
"_I_ was very unhappy, too," said Lily; but Elise shook her head as if to say, "What opposition did _you_ meet with?"
Jane simply looked on, vastly interested in this new development of domestic happenings, but exceedingly dubious as to the outcome. Mrs.
Lambert was, of course, deeply sympathetic with her daughter, and Mr.