TO SIGH, YET FEEL NO PAIN.
Mrs. Riley missed the Richlings, she said, more than tongue could tell.
She had easily rented the rooms they left vacant; that was not the
trouble. The new tenant was a sallow, gaunt, wind-dried seamstress of
sixty, who paid her rent punctually, but who was--
"Mighty poor comp'ny to thim as's been used to the upper tin, Mr.
Ristofalo."
Still she was a protection. Mrs. Riley had not regarded this as a
necessity in former days, but now, somehow, matters seemed different.
This seamstress had, moreover, a son of eighteen years, principally
skin and bone, who was hoping to be appointed assistant hostler at the
fire-engine house of "Volunteer One," and who meantime hung about Mrs.
Riley's dwelling and loved to relieve her of the care of little Mike.
This also was something to be appreciated. Still there was a void.
"Well, Mr. Richlin'!" cried Mrs. Riley, as she opened her parlor door in
response to a knock. "Well, I'll be switched! ha! ha! I didn't think it
was you at all. Take a seat and sit down!"
It was good to see how she enjoyed the visit. Whenever she listened to
Richling's words she rocked in her rocking-chair vigorously, and when
she spoke stopped its motion and rested her elbows on its arms.
"And how _is_ Mrs. Richlin'? And so she sent her love to me, did she,
now? The blessed angel! Now, ye're not just a-makin' that up? No, I
know ye wouldn't do sich a thing as that, Mr. Richlin'. Well, you must
give her mine back again. I've nobody else on e'rth to give ud to, and
never will have." She lifted her nose with amiable stateliness, as if to
imply that Richling might not believe this, but that it was true,
nevertheless.
"You may change your mind, Mrs. Riley, some day," returned Richling, a
little archly.
"Ha! ha!" She tossed her head and laughed with good-natured scorn.
"Nivver a fear o' that, Mr. Richlin'!" Her brogue was apt to broaden
when pleasure pulled down her dignity. "And, if I did, it wuddent be for
the likes of no I-talian Dago, if id's him ye're a-dthrivin' at,--not
intinding anny disrespect to your friend, Mr. Richlin', and indeed I
don't deny he's a perfect gintleman,--but, indeed, Mr. Richlin', I'm
just after thinkin' that you and yer lady wouldn't have no self-respect
for Kate Riley if she should be changing her name."
"Still you were thinking about it," said Richling, with a twinkle.
"Ah! ha! ha! Indeed I wasn', an' ye needn' be t'rowin' anny o' yer
slyness on me. Ye know ye'd have no self-respect fur me. No; now ye know
ye wuddent,--wud ye?"
"Why, Mrs. Riley, of course we would. Why--why not?" He stood in the
door-way, about to take his leave. "You may be sure we'll always be glad
of anything that will make you the happier." Mrs. Riley looked so grave
that he checked his humor.
"But in the nixt life, Mr. Richlin', how about that?"
"There? I suppose we shall simply each love all in absolute perfection.
We'll"--
"We'll never know the differ," interposed Mrs. Riley.
"That's it," said Richling, smiling again. "And so I say,--and I've
always said,--if a person _feels_ like marrying again, let him do it."
"Have ye, now? Well, ye're just that good, Mr. Richlin'."
"Yes," he responded, trying to be grave, "that's about my measure."
"Would _you_ do ut?"
"No, I wouldn't. I couldn't. But I should like--in good earnest, Mrs.
Riley, I should like, now, the comfort of knowing that you were not to
pass all the rest of your days in widowhood."
"Ah! ged out, Mr. Richlin'!" She failed in her effort to laugh. "Ah!
ye're sly!" She changed her attitude and drew a breath.
"No," said Richling, "no, honestly. I should feel that you deserved
better at this world's hands than that, and that the world deserved
better of you. I find two people don't make a world, Mrs. Riley, though
often they think they do. They certainly don't when one is gone."
"Mr. Richlin'," exclaimed Mrs. Riley, drawing back and waving her hand
sweetly, "stop yer flattery! Stop ud! Ah! ye're a-feeling yer oats, Mr.
Richlin'. An' ye're a-showin' em too, ye air. Why, I hered ye was
lookin' terrible, and here ye're lookin' just splendud!"
"Who told you that?" asked Richling.
"Never mind! Never mind who he was--ha, ha, ha!" She checked herself
suddenly. "Ah, me! It's a shame for the likes o' me to be behavin' that
foolish!" She put on additional dignity. "I will always be the Widow
Riley." Then relaxing again into sweetness: "Marridge is a lottery, Mr.
Richlin'; indeed an' it is; and ye know mighty well that he ye're after
joking me about is no more nor a fri'nd." She looked sweet enough for
somebody to kiss.
"I don't know so certainly about that," said her visitor, stepping down
upon the sidewalk and putting on his hat. "If I may judge by"-- He
paused and glanced at the window.
"Ah, now, Mr. Richlin', na-na-now, Mr. Richlin', ye daurn't say ud! Ye
daurn't!" She smiled and blushed and arched her neck and rose and sank
upon herself with sweet delight.
"I say if I may judge by what he has said to me," insisted Richling.
Mrs. Riley glided down across the door-step, and, with all the
insinuation of her sex and nation, demanded:--
"What'd he tell ye? Ah! he didn't tell ye nawthing! Ha, ha! there wasn'
nawthing to tell!" But Richling slipped away.
Mrs. Riley shook her finger: "Ah, ye're a wicket joker, Mr. Richlin'. I
didn't think that o' the likes of a gintleman like you, anyhow!" She
shook her finger again as she withdrew into the house, smiling broadly
all the way in to the cradle, where she kissed and kissed again her
ruddy, chubby, sleeping boy.
* * *
Ristofalo came often. He was a man of simple words, and of few thoughts
of the kind that were available in conversation; but his personal
adventures had begun almost with infancy, and followed one another in
close and strange succession over lands and seas ever since. He could
therefore talk best about himself, though he talked modestly. "These
things to hear would Desdemona seriously incline," and there came times
when even a tear was not wanting to gem the poetry of the situation.
"And ye might have saved yerself from all that," was sometimes her note
of sympathy. But when he asked how she silently dried her eyes.
Sometimes his experiences had been intensely ludicrous, and Mrs. Riley
would laugh until in pure self-oblivion she smote her thigh with her
palm, or laid her hand so smartly against his shoulder as to tip him
half off his seat.
"Ye didn't!"
"Yes."
"Ah! Get out wid ye, Raphael Ristofalo,--to be telling me that for the
trooth!"
At one such time she was about to give him a second push, but he took
the hand in his, and quietly kept it to the end of his story.
He lingered late that evening, but at length took his hat from under his
chair, rose, and extended his hand.
"Man alive!" she cried, "that's my _hand_, sur, I'd have ye to know.
Begahn wid ye! Lookut heere! What's the reason ye make it so long atween
yer visits, eh? Tell me that. Ah--ah--ye've no need fur to tell me, Mr.
Ristofalo! Ah--now don't tell a lie!"
"Too busy. Come all time--wasn't too busy."
"Ha, ha! Yes, yes; ye're too busy. Of coorse ye're too busy. Oh, yes! ye
_air_ too busy--a-courtin' thim I-talian froot gerls around the Frinch
Mairket. Ah! I'll bet two bits ye're a bouncer! Ah, don't tell me. I
know ye, ye villain! Some o' thim's a-waitin' fur ye now, ha, ha! Go!
And don't ye nivver come back heere anny more. D'ye mind?"
"Aw righ'." The Italian took her hand for the third time and held it,
standing in his simple square way before her and wearing his gentle
smile as he looked her in the eye. "Good-by, Kate."
Her eye quailed. Her hand pulled a little helplessly and in a meek voice
she said:--
"That's not right for you to do me that a-way, Mr. Ristofalo. I've got a
handle to my name, sur."
She threw some gentle rebuke into her glance, and turned it upon him. He
met it with that same amiable absence of emotion that was always in his
look.
"Kate too short by itself?" he asked. "Aw righ'; make it Kate
Ristofalo."
"No," said Mrs. Riley, averting and drooping her face.
"Take good care of you," said the Italian; "you and Mike. Always be
kind. Good care."
Mrs. Riley turned with sudden fervor.
"Good cayre!--Mr. Ristofalo," she exclaimed, lifting her free hand and
touching her bosom with the points of her fingers, "ye don't know the
hairt of a woman, surr! No-o-o, surr! It's _love_ we wants! 'The hairt
as has trooly loved nivver furgits, but as trooly loves ahn to the
tlose!'"
"Yes," said the Italian; "yes," nodding and ever smiling, "dass aw
righ'."
But she:--
"Ah! it's no use fur you to be a-talkin' an' a-pallaverin' to Kate Riley
when ye don't be lovin' her, Mr. Ristofalo, an' ye know ye don't."
A tear glistened in her eye.
"Yes, love you," said the Italian; "course, love you."
He did not move a foot or change the expression of a feature.
"H-yes!" said the widow. "H-yes!" she panted. "H-yes, a little! A
little, Mr. Ristofalo! But I want"--she pressed her hand hard upon her
bosom, and raised her eyes aloft--"I want to be--h--h--h-adaured above
all the e'rth!"
"Aw righ'," said Ristofalo; "das aw righ'; yes--door above all you
worth."
"Raphael Ristofalo," she said, "ye're a-deceivin' me! Ye came heere whin
nobody axed ye,--an' that ye know is a fact, surr,--an' made yerself
agree'ble to a poor, unsuspectin' widdah, an' [_tears_] rabbed me o' mie
hairt, ye did; whin I nivver intinded to git married ag'in."
"Don't cry, Kate--Kate Ristofalo," quietly observed the Italian, getting
an arm around her waist, and laying a hand on the farther cheek. "Kate
Ristofalo."
"Shut!" she exclaimed, turning with playful fierceness, and proudly
drawing back her head; "shut! Hah! It's Kate Ristofalo, is it? Ah, ye
think so? Hah-h! It'll be ad least two weeks yet before the priest will
be after giving you the right to call me that!"
And, in fact, an entire fortnight did pass before they were married.