A TOTAL ECLIPSE.
Nothing ever turns out just as we expect.
The next day promised to be long to Mell, but before the old tall
clock in the corner tolled out the hour of ten, something happened
which gave to its every moment a pair of golden wings. Miss Josey
Martlett, one of those ancient angels who personate youth, who
endeavor to assimilate facial statistics and unfledged manners, who
are interested in everything under the sun except their own business,
came driving up to old man Creecy's farm. Under this lady's auspices
it had been, and through her material assistance, that the sprightly
little country girl had been mercifully snatched out of regions of
ignorance and darkness, and maintained for a number of years at a
famous boarding-school, where, among other things, she had been taught
to worship the beautiful in all its forms, to cultivate the refined in
all its processes, and to execrate the common and the ugly in all its
manifestations. A defective curriculum--for what is more common than
human frailty; what uglier than, oftentimes, duty?
Let us hasten to concede that old man Creecy has some show of reason
on his side. Not all education educates. The best may furnish us with
feet and hands, eyes and wings, trained members, fit implements,
shields, anchorage, strongholds, and stepping-stones; but also
hiding-places, weak spots, loopholes, clogs, and stumbling-blocks.
"I would stay, but I can't," protested Miss Josey, as Mell insisted
upon her taking off her hat and sitting down in the most comfortable
rocker in the house, while she herself sat beside her and toyed with
the visitor's hand, and fanned away the heat; and then ran for a glass
of fresh buttermilk, and brought in some red peaches and blue grapes
on an outlandish little Jap waiter in all colors, "just too 'cute for
anything." Miss Josey was Mell's only connecting link with the country
"quality," and hence appreciated in due proportion to her importance.
"I declare, Mell, you spoil me to death," simpered Miss Josey, "and
nothing else in life is half so nice as being spoiled to death. But I
must eat and run--must, really--I'm just so busy I hardly know which
way to turn. I want you to go to a picnic with me to-morrow."
"A picnic!"
Mell's heart got into her throat at one single bound, and stuck there.
Jerome had said something about a picnic.
"What picnic, Miss Josey?"
"The Grange picnic. I'm one of the lady managers, as perhaps you know,
and I want you to help me with the tables. Mrs. Rutland cannot go, and
there are so few to be depended on."
"You can depend on me," said Mell; "I will go with you gladly--gladly
spend and be spent for you, who have been always so kind to me."
Hadn't she, though? But this was the crowning act of all Miss Josey's
kindness. At this picnic she would see Jerome, and, who knows, perhaps
find out his difficulties!
"You are a sweet girl, Mell," returned Miss Josey, gratified. "So
grateful, in a world chock full of the basest ingratitude. I told Miss
Rutland, 'Mell Creecy is the girl to take your place. She knows what
to do, and she'll do it!'"
After this, Mell could scarcely follow the drift of her visitor's
conversation. She was in a ferment of impatience for Miss Josey to be
gone, that she might put the finishing touches to a new white dress in
readiness for to-morrow's festivities. But Miss Josey, who couldn't
possibly stay two short minutes when she arrived, did not get off
under two mortal hours, or more. This is one of those little
peculiarities of the sex, which the last one of them disavows.
Gone at last, Mell went dancing over the house and singing over her
work at such a lively rate, that her father put his head in at the
chamber-door wanting to know "what she was er makin' sich er fuss
erbout?"
"The Grange picnic, father, tra-la-la! I'm going with Miss Josey,
folderolloll!"
"Oho! Devilho gwine ter be thar, I s'pose?"
"Yes, indeed! Hail, all hail! La-la-tra-la!"
"Make him toe the mark, darter!"
Mell's song abruptly ceased.
To make an individual of Mr. Jerome Devonhough's subtle intellect and
masterful will toe the mark was going to be no easy matter. He was far
from being an exact science whose formula could be reduced to the
touchstone of certainty. Softer were his ways, and more complex his
web, the fabric of his purpose more difficult to trace, than the
intricate meshes of this cob-webbery lace she was basting in the neck
of her dress. Nevertheless, every stitch of her needle fastened down
her gathering intentions to the figure of her mind. Jerome must have
done with these evasions; he must tell her the truth, and the whole
truth; he must henceforth act right up to the notch, or else she would
put an end to everything between them, and in the future have nothing
whatever to do with him. Several measures such as these, rightly
enforced, would, she believed, bring the most slippery Lothario in
existence down on his knees at a woman's feet, _If_ the man really
loved the woman. _If_ Jerome really loved Mell.
"If, _Si, Wenn, Se!_" vociferated Mell, stamping her fiery little
foot. "Why was it ever put into articulate speech?"
She knew it, this highly educated girl, in so many languages, and
could not blot it out in a single one of them! Is not mere human
knowledge a kind of blunt tool?
But she was ready, bright and early, the next morning, so promptly
ready that Miss Josey commended her in unstinted terms.
"Had it been Clara," said Miss Josey, as Mell sprang lightly into the
little basket phaeton, "she'd have kept me waiting, probably, a whole
hour without a scruple of compunction! Come, we will go to the Bigge
House first for some things I must carry."
To the Bigge House? The gates of Paradise were about to open for
Mell. Rejoice with her, all ye who read. How will you feel when
the doors of your big house are about to unclose themselves before
your long-aspiring and wistful gaze, disclosing within the risen
Star of Conquest, the bright realization of many golden visions and
many rose-colored dreams?
This Bigge House, of so much local fame and importance, was, in fact,
a spacious mansion of no small pretention, and having been originally
built for a man named Bigge, in spite of all that the present owners
could do in the way of writing and calling it Rutland Manse, it
remained, year after year, the Bigge House. Pleasantly situated,
well-constructed, and well-kept, the house itself was surrounded by
extensive and beautiful grounds, a grove, a grass plot, a flower
garden embellished with trellises, terraces, fountains, rare
shrubbery, and an artificial pond to row pretty little boats on, and
secondly, to propagate fish. The family were of an old stock, but a
newly rich--a class who like much to enjoy their money, and better
still, to show it.
On this cloudless summer morn, perfect as weather goes, so perfect
that one might look upon it as a Providential complicity in the
booming of the Grange picnic, a gracious provision of nature to suit
one special occasion, the approaches to the Bigge House presented a
stirring scene. Carriages, buggies, and wagons, vehicles of every
description, and vehicles nondescript, lined the roadways in every
direction. Servants were rushing hither and thither, fresh arrivals
coming every few moments to swell the throng, voices calling to each
other in joyous recognition, fair hands waving _au revoirs_, as they
dashed by, without stopping, on their way to the scene of the day's
festivities. A pleasurable sense of expectation brightened every face,
a buoyant sense of exhilaration quickened every heart, and high above
the heads of all, a brilliant sun, regnant on a field of blue, lighted
up the long sloping hills and broad green valleys. Mell looked about
her wonderingly. Who were all these people, and how many of them would
she know before the day was done?
Miss Josey had left her holding the reins while she ran in for a cargo
of bundles. It was not at all necessary, except in Miss Josey's
imagination. Her well-groomed little nag was alive, it is true, but
some live things creep, and Aristophanes--called Top,--was one of
them. He never thought of starting anywhere as long as he could stand
still. In this respect, he differed from his mistress, who never
stayed anywhere, as long as she could find enough news to keep going.
"Hold him tight, Mell," had been Miss Josey's injunction when she left
Mell alone with Top.
At another time this arrangement would have greatly disappointed Mell.
Her whole being had clamored to get inside the Bigge House, and,
behold! here she sat along with Top outside the sacred precincts. But,
somehow, her heart beat so high with rainbow-tinted fancies, she was
altogether unconscious of anything amiss in the situation. If not
within the very courts of the wonderful palace, the very penetralia of
the Penates, she was very near the goal; nearer than she had ever been
before. She could almost look in--she could almost see the shining
garments and gloriously bright faces of the beings she envied, the
beings who lived that life so far above her own. She had come thus
far; she waited at the gate, and some day the great doors would be
flung wide open for her; she would cross the threshold. But not alone.
One would bear her company who was ever an honored guest there, and
in many another home of wealth and fashion and influence.
These thoughts transferred their suppressed rapture into the
expression of her face--into cheeks dazzling for joy--into eyes
swimming in lustre--into a mouth wreathed into curves of exquisite
transport. She was beautiful.
A number of young gallants came crowding about the gate. They stood in
the plentitude of checked tweeds and light flannel, with the latest
sheen on a boot, and the latest paragon of a hat--mighty swells,
conscious of their own superiority, eying this deuced pretty girl, and
wondering who she was.
"You ought to know, Rube," said one.
"But, I don't!" said Rube. "I will know before I'm much older though,
you can depend upon me for that! She's with Miss Josey."
Mell did not notice them beyond a casual glance. They had about them,
incontestably, an enormous lot of style, but compared to Jerome, they
were flat,--awfully flat. She caught a glimpse of him now, this
swellest swell of the period, coming down the marble steps of the
mansion.
Some one is with him--a lady. Yes, just as she thought, Clara Rutland.
Here they come. She, so--so--almost ugly, and he, so--so--so
Jerome-like. That's the only way to express it. Jerome is more than
simply handsome, more than merely graceful, more than a man among
men--he's a non-such, in a nut-shell!
But here he is, almost in speaking distance, and every step
bringing him nearer. Isn't he going to be surprised? Isn't he going
to be delighted? Isn't he going to shake her hand and smile that
impenetrable smile, and--?
How is this? Jerome has come and gone. He did not look at her--he did
not once raise his eyes in passing.
Just ahead of this poky little vehicle, where Mell awaited the return
of Miss Josey, stood a lordly equipage, all silver plate and shine,
with a well-dressed groom standing in front of the champing, restive,
mettlesome animal, as eager to be off and gone somewhere as the most
restless of human hearts in a human bosom.
Into this nobby turnout Jerome assisted Miss Rutland, and then
springing in himself, grasped the reins from the groom's hands. For
one awful moment (to Mell) the horse stood straight upon his hind
legs, and then, obeying Jerome's voice, who said in the quietest of
tones, 'Go on, Rhesus,' gave one wild plunge and dashed ahead, leaving
Mell with a stifled feeling, as if she was buried alive under twenty
feet of volcanic ashes.
But what did it mean--his passing her without a sign of recognition?
Jerome might be of a truant disposition, of unstable fancy, and
superior in his own strength to most ordinary rules, but he couldn't
help knowing her face to face. There was a bare possibility that he
had not really seen her; his sight, come to think of it, was none of
the best, or, at least, he habitually wore an interesting little
_pince-nez_ dangling from his button-hole, and sometimes, though not
often, stuck it across the bridge of his well-shaped nose with telling
effect.
With such arguments, and much wanting to be convinced, Mell recovered
her equipoise to some extent, managing to hear about half Miss Josey
was saying, and to answer only once or twice very wildly at random.
Arrived at their destination, she assisted her patroness in
receiving and arranging the baskets; this important contingent of
the day's proceedings being satisfactorily disposed of, they
followed the example of the crowd at large and strolled about in
search of some amusement. A more delightful location for a day's
outing it would be hard to find, the world over. On three sides of
the principal grove, stretched an immense plateau, smooth as a
flower-garden, and level as a plumb line, and on the fourth side a
sudden, bold declivity, just as if a giant hand had pulled the
clustering hills apart and left them wide asunder, laying bare the
heart of a magnificent ravine. In this wild gorge were stupendous
cliffs and brinks, shady shelves o'erhanging secluded and romantic
nooks, enormous rocks holding plentiful treasures in moss and
lichen, singularly constructed mounds, probably the remaining
deposit of a prehistoric race, wild flowers in variety, wild scenery
in perfection, and a beautiful stream of running water, wherein
disported finny tribes in abundance. Nothing in the highest art of
gardenesque could produce such results as this. A mere ramble amid
such scenes of diverse picturesqueness--nature's wear and tear in
moods of passion--amounts to a study of geological architecture under
favoring conditions.
Mell loved nature, but not as she loved Jerome. Her brains were
crammed with wild speculations in regard to him, which accounts for
the fact that she had no mind on that eventful day to invest in all
those wonderful manifestations of nature's power and nature's
mystery.
During their circuitous meanderings, two young men joined Miss Josey
and were duly presented to her _protege_. They were fine young
fellows, and very pleasant, too, but Mell continued so preoccupied in
the vain racking of her brain, trying to imagine what had become of
Jerome and Clara Rutland, that she did not catch their names, and
replied to their efforts at conversation with monosyllabic remarks.
One of them, a merry-tempered, straightforward, stalwart young chap,
armed with rod and bait, asked her, with a flattering degree of
warmth, if she wouldn't go with them a-fishing; but reflecting if she
did so, she would in all likelihood be out of the way of seeing Jerome
for hours to come, Mell declined without circumlocution, glad to get
rid of him on the pretext of having promised to assist Miss Josey in
her onerous duties, as commissary of subsistence. Discouraged, the
young fisherman bowed and left.
"Such a pretty girl," he remarked to his companion. "It's a pity she
doesn't know what to say!"
Think of Mell Creecy not knowing what to say! The girl who was always
saying things nobody else had ever thought of saying. Such is the
pretty pass to which an unhappy love may bring the brightest girl!
And, after all, she saw absolutely nothing of Jerome until all those
wagon upon wagon loads of baskets had been ransacked, and their
tempting contents emptied out upon the festive board, giving forth
grateful suggestions of the coming mid-day meal.
While squeezing lemons, flushed and more than ever anxious, deft of
hand, but uneasy in mind, the buggy containing Jerome and Miss Rutland
dashed into the grove.
"We've been all the way to Pudney," called out the young lady, holding
up to view some tied-up boxes, "and here are the prizes."
"All right," responded Miss Josey, "but do let us have the ice. The
prizes are of no consequence to a famishing people, but the dinner is,
and we are about ready."
"She's powerfully interested in the prizes," commented a girl at
Mell's elbow, "but she has a good right to be."
"Why?" inquired Mell.
"Because she is going to be crowned queen of love and beauty."
"How do you know?"
"I've put things together, and that's the way they sum up to me. That
young man with her can beat all of our boys, and he's going to crown
her."
"Is he?" ejaculated Mell.
Let him dare to do it! Before Jerome Devonhough should place a
victor's crown on Clara Rutland's head, she would--well, what would
she do? "_Anything!_" muttered Mell, between her teeth.
Poor Mell! She had been to such an expensive school and learned so
many things, and not one of them was of the slightest use to her in
this sore strait. Could there not be established a new school for
girls, differing materially from the old; founded upon a more
adaptable basis, taught after a hitherto unknown method, and including
prominently in its curriculum of studies, that branch of knowledge
whose acquisition enables a woman to bear long, to suffer in silence,
and in weakness to be strong? These are the practical issues in a
woman's daily life, and although in such a school she might not get
her money's worth in German gutturals and French verbs, she would, at
least, have indulged in a less reckless expenditure of time in
obtaining useless knowledge.
But let us not blame the schools over much, and without a just
discrimination. Not all the fault lies at their door. Something there
is amiss among the girls themselves. It may be, that they love and
hate, and talk too much, even in one language.
In a girl of Mell's temperament, love would not have been love,
lacking jealousy, and its twin-feeling, revenge. More's the pity,
Mell!
That picnic dinner was splendid. Everybody enjoyed it but Mell, and it
was not the young fisherman's fault that she did not. Although he was
in attendance upon another young lady, who seemed to know what to say,
and said it incessantly, he kept an eye on Mell, and proffered her
every tempting dish he could lay his hands upon. To no purpose; for
Mell could not eat. She tried, and the very first mouthful paralyzed
her ability to swallow. It was altogether as much as she could do to
keep from sobbing aloud in the faces of all these omnivorous, happy
people. What made it all the worse, at breakfast time she had been
happier than they--too happy, in fact, to eat, and now, here at
dinner, she was too miserable.
And there sat the author of all her misery, not twelve feet distant,
perfectly oblivious to her proximity, nay, her very existence. Not by
any chance did he ever look toward her, or show any consciousness of
her presence. So devoted and so marked were his attentions to that
uninteresting and anything but attractive Clara Rutland, that Mell
heard it commented upon on all sides. These two, so sufficient unto
themselves, were among the first to leave the festal board and wander
off in sylvan haunts. Anon, all appetites were satisfied, and amid the
buzzing of tongues and boisterous flashes of merriment, the multitude
again dispersed. Unobserved and in a very unenviable frame of mind,
the unhappy Mell stole away to herself. The paramount desire of her
wounded spirit was to get beyond the ken of human eye. In a hidden
recess screened by an overhanging rock, she sat down, the prey of such
discordant and chaotic thoughts as wear away, in time, the bulwarks of
reason. It was yesterday, no, the day before, no, longer, that he had
called upon God to witness that she alone was dear to him, she only
precious in his sight, and now, how stands the case? Ah, dear God, you
heard him say it! Oh, All-seeing Eye, you have looked upon him this
day, and will not a lightning blast from an indignant Heaven palsy the
false tongue, whose words have no more meaning than loose rubble!
Into the heaviness of these thoughts, growing heavier with access of
bitterness as the moments sped, there came the ringing tones of a
voice--a voice well known to Mell.
Shaking off her lethargy and looking out from her hiding place, she
beheld the object of all these harrowing reflections, grasping Miss
Rutland's two hands in his own, as they together, and laughingly,
descended a precipitous declivity. Once down, they proceeded with
access of laughter, to push their way through a tangle of brushwood.
To get out of this into the beaten path, they must necessarily advance
in the direction of her place of concealment, and, devoured with
jealousy, inflamed with distrust, tortured with the cruel madness of
love, Mell determined to satisfy herself on the spot, as to whether
Jerome's avoidance was premeditated or unintentional. Just as the
couple emerged from their nether difficulties, and stood on clear
ground and firm footing, Mell suddenly stepped forth upon the same
path, confronting them face to face. Miss Rutland did not speak. Mell
knew she would not, although they had attended the same boarding
school for years, lived in the same house, and graduated in the same
class, where Miss Rutland, unlike herself, achieved no distinction of
self-merit; being content to be accounted distinguished through the
sepulchre of a dead father.
Mell did not expect recognition from her in such a place at such a
time; for the neighboring rocks were alive with the best families in
the county, and Clara was one of those feeble brained persons, who
have minds suited to all purposes, save use and knowledge of that kind
which may be put on and off as a movable garment. Such creatures,
tossed about helplessly on the billows of circumstance, keep one
finger on the public pulse, and know you, or know you not, according
to its beat. For all this, Mell cared nothing in that supreme moment.
One swift glance at Clara, and after that every faculty of her mind
and body was centered on Jerome. He was evidently surprised at being
nearly run over by this blustering and blowsy young lady, but beyond
that--nothing. He looked her full in the face, the unknowing look of a
total stranger. The result of this look was to Mell calamitous. A
waving blankness came before her sight, her knees trembled, her
strength seemed poured out like water, and staggering to a tree, she
caught hold of it for support.
"Cut--cut, dead!"
This, after all that had passed between them, was simply brutal. But
the despised and slighted country girl was only momentarily stunned,
not crushed. Out of the throes of her wounded pride and injured
affection, there burst forth the devouring flames of a fiery and
passionate nature, incapable of any luke-warmness in emotion. Her eyes
dilated, her fingers twitched, her face set like a flint, her lip
curled in scorn, and she shook her clenched fist at Jerome's
retreating figure.
"Contemptible coward! Miserable trickster! What have I ever done, that
you should refuse to speak to me in the presence of Clara Rutland?"
Her bosom heaved; she sobbed aloud, and shook her fist again.
"I'll make you sorry for this! I'll get even with you, yet!" Words,
whose fierce earnestness embodied a prophesy, and were followed by a
prayer:
"Oh, God, only give me the power to make him feel it, and I ask no
more! I care not what then befalls me!"
This paroxysm of passion swept over her as a besom of destruction,
leaving her quenched as tow, white, unnerved, quite pitiful and hushed.
She sank to the ground and into a state of semi-unconsciousness.
Some one coming near, some one lifting her into a sitting posture,
some one pouring cold water upon her head, and holding something to
her nose aroused her.
"That's right," said the young fisherman, "open your eyes--open them
wide! It's nobody but me. I wouldn't tell another soul, for I know you
wouldn't want the mischief of a fuss made over it. But how did you
come to pitch over?"
"I did not come to pitch over," said Mell, bewildered, "did I?"
"Of course you did! I had been looking for you for ever so long, and
standing on top there, I happened to look down, and saw you lying
here. And you never will know how scared I was, for, at first, I
thought you were dead. Gad, didn't I make tracks, though, after I got
started! But, drink a little more of this, and now, don't you feel set
up again?"
"Considerably so," said Mell, trying, too, to look set up. He was so
kind, and she, poor, bruised thing, so grateful. This little word,
kind, so often upon the lip--upon yours and mine, and the lips of our
friends, as we encounter them socially on our pilgrimage day by day,
is only at certain epochs in our own lives fully understood, and
deservedly cherished deep down in the heart. And yet, so few of us can
be great, and so many of us could be kind if we would, and oftener
than we are.
"I know just why you toppled," proceeded Mell's kind rescuer.
"But I didn't topple!" again protested Mell.
"Did you fall down on purpose?"
"No. I did not fall at all, as far as I know."
"Exactly! those are the worst kind--the falls you can't tell anything
about."
So they are. Her's had not been far in space--she remembered it all
now, with an acute pang--but, oh, so far in spirit!
"You could walk now a little, couldn't you?"
"I think I could," said Mell.
She got upon her feet with his assistance.
"You are shaky, yet."
"A little shaky," Mell admitted.
"Then take my arm."
She took it, as a wise being takes the inevitable all through life,
submissively, and without saying much about it.
They walked slowly, and the young follower of dear old Ike watched his
companion's every step, with a solicitude bordering on the fatherly.
"What do you suppose I am going to do with you, now?"
She could not imagine.
"Give you something to eat--not that only, make you eat it! I gave you
enough at dinner time, if you had only eaten it, but you left all my
goody-goodies untasted."
"And you unthanked," added Mell, with a ghost of her old smile, and a
_soupcon_ of her old sprightliness.
"No matter about that! Only, I was worried that you could not eat, and
I know the reason why."
Did he? Did he know it? The girl at his side dreaded to hear his next
words.
"Miss Josey had been working you to death all the morning. I saw you
how you stayed around and looked after everything, while Miss Josey
sat on one side with her hands folded. She's good at that! She never
does anything herself but reap all the glory of other people's
successes. The very worst of these picnics is, that a few do all of
the work, and the many all the enjoying. Now, you--_you_ haven't had
much of a time, have you?"
She had not, but no girl in her right mind is going to confess, out
and out, that she hasn't had a good time, even in the Inferno.
"Rather slow, perhaps," answered Mell, putting it as mildly on a
strained case, as the case would bear, "but there's nobody to blame
for it, but myself. If I wasn't such a fool in some respects, I might
have had a--a perfectly gorgeous time. _You_ would have given me all
the good time a girl need to look for."
"But you wouldn't let me!"
"Well, you see," explained Mell, warming with her subject, "I had
promised Miss Josey--"
"Never promise her anything again!"
"I don't think I will! But, as I was saying, I promised her to come
and take Miss Rutland's place--to come for that very purpose, and when
I make a promise, however hard, I'm going to keep it."
"Bravo for you! Not every girl does that."
"Every high-principled girl does." Her tones were severely
uncompromising.
"_Ought to_, you mean," rejoined her companion, with an incredulous
laugh.
"No--_does!_"
Light words, lightly spoken, lightly gone! Alas! How these bubbles of
talk, subtle as air, come back home after a time, to twit us with
scorn, to taunt us with falsity, to impute wrong unto us, to arraign,
to accuse, to denounce, to condemn out of our own lips.
"Here we are," said Mell's companion, still laughing at the idea of a
young woman thinking it necessary to hold tight to her word. "Here we
are. Now sit right down here and rest your head comfortably against
this tree. I'll be back in a twinkling."
So he was, with a plate in his hand filled with edibles, and a bottle
of sparkling wine.
"Eat," commanded this eminently practical young man; "eat and drink.
That's all you need now to fetch you round completely."
This settled the question, and settled it most judiciously and
satisfactorily. The solid food proved a balm of comfort to that
desolate goneness within her, which Mell had wrongly ascribed as due
entirely to the volcanic derangement of her heart; and the strong wine
sped through her veins a draught of health, a cordial to the mind, a
rosy elixir of life.
Mell began to take some interest in her companion and her present
surroundings. She recognized in them a certain claim to her
consideration, and a certain charm. This young stranger was a
gentleman in looks and bearing; he had some manliness in his nature,
nevertheless, (Mell felt down on gentlemen) and a heart as brimming
full of charity as St. Vincent de Paul, himself. He was not ashamed
among all his fine friends, to speak to a simple country girl, who,
destitute of fortune, had nothing to commend her but innate modesty
and God-given beauty. So far from being ashamed, he was ministering to
her wants as no one had ever ministered to them before--as kindly and
courteously as if she were in every respect his equal in social
standing. Jerome would not speak to her, and this gentleman, in her
weakness, held the cup to her lips, and put the food into her mouth
with his own hands.
"I'll pray for him this very night," thought Mell, and moistened the
thought with a grateful tear.
But, long before the edibles were consumed, every vestige of a tear
had disappeared from Mell's eyes, and she was talking back to this
pattern of a gentleman, as few girls of her age knew so well how to
do. The blood rushed back to her pallid cheeks, witchery to her
tongue, magic to her glance.
"Don't be offended," she remarked to him, with enchanting candor,
after they had become the best of friends; "but I did not hear your
name this morning, and I have not the slightest idea who you are."
"Have you the slightest desire to know?"
"Indeed I have! You can't imagine--the very greatest desire!"
"Then let me refresh your memory somewhat. Do you recall a pug-nosed,
freckle-faced, bull-headed youngster, who used to pommel Jim Green
into blue jelly, every time he wanted to lift you over the swollen
creek or carry your school-bag, or--"
"I do; I remember him well. But you--you are not Rube Rutland?"
"Then I wish you'd tell me who I am! I've been thinking I was Rube
Rutland for a good many years now--for I am older than I look."
"And to think I did not know you!" exclaimed Mell.
"And to think I did not know _you!_" exclaimed Rube. "That's what gets
me! I was asking everybody and in all directions who that stunning
girl was, with--"
"Well," inquired Mell, laughing, "with _what?_ I'd like to know what
is stunning about me."
"With the sweetest face I ever looked into."
This reply caused Mell's eyes, intently fixed upon the speaker, to
drop with rare grace to meet the maiden's blush upon her cheek. A
perfectly natural action, it was for that reason and others, a very
effective one.
"When I found out who you were," pursued Rube, studying the face he
had praised, seeing it glorified by his praises, "I fairly froze to
Miss Josey, wanting so much to renew our acquaintance, and when you
had no word of welcome for an old friend, and gave me the cold
shoulder with such a vengeance, I was cut all to pieces over it. Fact!
I couldn't enjoy fishing, and I feel bad yet!"
"You might have known I did not recognize you," said Mell, lifting her
eyes. "I cannot tell you how glad I am, Mr. Rutland."
"_Mr. Rutland!_ It used to Rube."
"And shall be Rube again, if you so desire! Rube, I am just delighted
that you've come back home!"