There were friends about Miss Mercy none too sorry to witness the
discomfiture of this lofty aspirant. Poor Jamie, I fear, got some
cross looks for his share in the matter; and tears, which were harder
still to bear. John Hughson, who was a prosperous young teamster,
began to come in again, and take his pipe of an evening with Jamie. He
no longer sat in his shirt-sleeves, and was in other ways much
improved. Mercedes was gracious to him evenings; indeed, it was her
nature to be gracious to all men. She had a way of looking straight at
them with kind eyes, her lips slightly parted, her smile just showing
the edges of both upper and under teeth; so that you knew not whether
it was sweeter to look at her eyes or her lips, and were lost in the
effort to decide. So one day Hughson felt emboldened to ask if he
might bear her company to church on Sunday. And Miss Sadie,--as now
they called her, for she objected to the name of Mercy, and nothing
but Sadie could her friends make out of Mercedes,--Sadie, to please
McMurtagh, consented.
But when the Sunday came, poor Hughson, who looked well enough in
week-day clothes, became, to her quick eye, impossible in black.
"You see, Sadie, I am bright and early, to be your beau."
There is a fine directness about courtship in Hughson's class,--it
puts the dots upon the _i_'s; but Sadie must have preferred them
dotless, for she said, "My name is not Sadie."
"Mercy."
"Nor Mercy."
"Mer--Mercedes, then."
"Nor Mercedes alone."
"Well, Miss McMurtagh, though I've known you from a child."
A shrug of Mercedes' pretty shoulders implied that this might be the
last passport to her acquaintance as a woman. "Mr. McMurtagh is not
my father. My name is Silva."
"Oho! all the Italian fruit-dealers are named Silva!"
"If you're rude, I'll not go to church with you," said Miss Silva
demurely.
Hughson was clumsily repentant. But the young lady would not go to the
King's Chapel (where she had lately affected an interest; it was the
Bowdoins' church), but led him to still older Christ Church, at the
northern end of the town. Here, in those ante-Episcopalian days, were
scarce a dozen worshipers; and you might have a square, dock-like pew
all to yourself, turn your back upon the minister, and gaze upon the
painted angels blowing gilded trumpets in the gallery.
It must be confessed that Hughson had little conversation; and as they
walked back, through Hanover Street, among crowds of young women, none
so neatly dressed as she, and men less respectable than honest
Hughson, Mercedes was conscious of a void within her life. In the
afternoon she shut herself in her room and had a crying spell; at
least so Jamie feared, as he tiptoed by her door, in apprehension of
her sobs. Her piano had grown silent of late. What use was a piano
among such as Hughson? So Jamie and the rising teamster sat in the
kitchen and discussed the situation over pipes.
"The poor child ought to have some company," said Jamie.
Hughson felt this a reflection upon him, and answered but with harder
puffs. "What she wants," said he at last, "is society. A good nice
dancing-party, now?"