This "hill path" was a narrowed continuance of the street, that led
gradually down along the hill's steep face to reach the town and the
river meadows. Godfrey, halting before Ruth and her brother, watched the
blooming hawthorn, over there, bend and shake and straighten and bend
again, above Arthur's unseen hands. Then, glancing furtively back toward
Mrs. Morris, he muttered to Ruth, while Leonard gravely looked out
across the landscape, "I live and learn."
"So we learn to live," was Ruth's playful reply. To her it was painfully
clear that Mrs. Morris, very sweetly no doubt, had eluded Godfrey's
endeavors to inform her of anything not to his brother's unqualified
praise. In the Bylow Hill group, Ruth had a way of smiling abstractedly,
which was very dear to Godfrey even when it meant he had best say no
more; and this smile had just said this to him when Isabel and Arthur
came into view again. As the two and the three drifted toward each
other, Ruth let Leonard outstep her, and joined Godfrey with a light in
her face that quickened his pulse.
After a word or two of slight import she said, as they slowly walked,
"Godfrey."
"Yes," eagerly responded the lover.
"Down in the garden, awhile ago--did I--promise something?"
"You most certainly did!" She had promised that if he would let a
certain subject drop she would bring it up again, herself, before he
must take his leave.
"And must you go very soon, now?" she asked.
"I've only a few minutes left," said the lover, with a lover's license.
"Well, I'm ready to speak. Of course, Godfrey, I know my heart."
The young man smiled ruefully. "I've known mine till I'm dead tired of
the acquaintance."
Other words passed, her eyes on the ground as they loitered, and after a
pause she murmured:--"But I've known my heart as long as you've known
yours."
"You've known--What do you--Oh, Ruth, look at me!"
She looked, very tenderly, although she said, "You forget we are
observed."
"Oh, observed! Do you mean hope--for me--after all?"
"I mean that if you will only wait until we can get a clear light on
this matter of Isabel's--which will most likely be by the next time you
come"--
"Oh, Ruth, Ruth, my own Ruth at last!"
"Please don't speak so. I'm not engaging myself to you now."
"Oh yes, you are! Yes, you are! Yes--you--are!"
"No--no--no--listen! Listen to me, Godfrey. I think that now, among us
all, we shall manage Isabel's affair well enough, and that the very next
time--you--come"--She began absently to pick her steps.
"What--what then?"
"Then you may ask me."
The response of the overjoyed lover was but one or two passionate words,
and her sufficient reply, as they halted among their fellows, was to
look across the valley with her meditative smile. Isabel took note, but
kindly gave a long sigh of admiration, and with an exalted sweep of the
hand drew the gaze of the five to the beauties of the scene below. The
day was near its end. The long shadow of the great cliff behind Bylow
Hill hung over the roofs of the town and over the hither meadows. The
sun's rays were laying their last touches upon the winding river, and
upon the grainfields that extended from its farther shore. In the upper
blue rested a few peaceful clouds, changing from silver to pink, from
pink to pearly gray, and on the skyline crouched in a purpling haze the
round-backed mountains of another county.
To Mrs. Morris and the General the sight, from the old elm-tree seat,
was even fairer than to the youthful group whose forms stood out against
the sky, the floral colors of the girls' draperies heightened by the
western light. For a while the two sitters gave the perfect scene the
tribute of a perfect silence, and then the General asked, as he
cautiously straightened his impaired frame, "Has not Isabel been making
some--eh--news for herself--and us?"
The lady's lips parted for their peculiar laugh of embarrassment, but
the questioner's smile was so serious that she forced her sweetest
gravity. "Why, General, according to our Southern ways," she
said,--every word mellowed by her Southern way of saying it,--"that's
for Isabel to tell you."
"Then why does she not do it, Mrs. Morris?" asked the veteran, who had
been district attorney himself once upon a time, and was clever with
witnesses.
"Why, really, General, Isabel hasn't had a cha--Oh! ho, ho! I oughtn't
to have said that!" Mrs. Morris had a killing dimple, but never used it.
"I suppose--of course"--said the General, "she will say
it's--eh--Arthur?"
"Now you're making me tell," she laughed, "and I mustn't! General,
Godfrey seems to be going."
In fact, Godfrey was shaking hands with Ruth and Leonard. Now he took
the hands of Arthur and Isabel together, and Mrs. Morris laughed more
sweetly and with more oh's and ho's than ever; for Isabel sedately
kissed Arthur's brother.
Ruth made signs to her father, who answered them in kind. "What does she
say, Mrs. Morris? Can you hear?"
"She says they're singing 'your hymn' down in a church under the hill."
"Ah yes." He beamed and nodded to Ruth; but when Mrs. Morris once more
laughed, his brow clouded a trifle. "Your daughter, Mrs. Morris"--
The lady broke in with a note of bright surprise, rose, and took an
unconscious step forward. The five young friends were advancing in a
compact cluster, with measured pace. Ruth and Isabel, in front abreast,
and making happy show of the hawthorn sprays, were just enough apart to
conceal, except for their superior height, the three lovers, and in
lowered tones, but with kindling eyes, the five, incited by Ruth, were
singing the song they had caught up from the valley,--the old man's
favorite from the days of his own song-time. The General got himself
hurriedly to his feet; the shade passed from his brow. The group came
close; he stepped out, and Isabel, meeting him, laid her two hands in
his, while the halting cluster ceased their song suspensively on a line
that pledged loves and friendships too ethereal to clash.
"Isabel,"--he turned up a broadened palm,--"here's my amen to that line;
where's yours?"
With blushing alacrity she laid her hand on his.
"Arthur!" he called, and the lively lover added his to the two. "Now,
Ruth!"
"Father!" laughed the daughter, "isn't this rather youngish?" But she
laid her hand promptly upon Arthur's, and the lines of the General's
face deepened playfully, and Mrs. Morris's dimple did the same, as
Godfrey thrust his hand in upon Ruth's, unasked. The matron laughed very
tenderly on the key of O while she added her hand, and received
Leonard's heavy palm above it. Then Arthur clapped a second hand upon
Leonard's, and Leonard was about to lay a second quietly upon Arthur's,
when Isabel, rose-red from brow to throat, gayly broke the heap and
embraced Ruth.
"Well, honey-girlie," said Mrs. Morris, as she and Isabel reentered
their cottage, "wasn't it sweet of them all, that 'laying on of hands,'
as Arthur called it?"
"Yes," replied the Southern girl, starting up the cramped old New
England stairway to her room. "It was child's play, but it was very
sweet of them, and especially of the General."
The mother detained her fondly. "And still, my child, you're not
satisfied?"
"Ah, mother, are you blind, stone blind, or do you only hope I am?"
"My dearie!"
"Why, mother, excepting Leonard, we haven't had one word of true consent
from one of them."
"Oh, now, Isabel! They'll all be glad enough by and by."
"Yes," said the daughter, from the landing above, "I've no doubt of
that."
She passed into her room, closed the door, and standing in the middle of
the floor, with her temples in her palms, said, "O merciful God! Oh,
Leonard Byington, if only that second hand of yours had hung back!"
V