"Mother! I have decided at last. I shall hang out my shingle in
Dunellen. It is a picturesque little city, and the climate is as good
for you as the south of France."
"I am very glad," she answered cordially. "You are a born physician, you
are cool, you are quick, you are gentle; you can keep your feelings
under perfect control. You are not quite a Stoic, but you will do very
well for one."
"But you will not be happy at Old Place without me."
"Why should I be without you?"
"You have noticed that large, wide brick house on the opposite side of
the Park from Miss Jewett's? It has a garden and stable; it is just the
house for us; you may have two rooms thrown into one for your
sitting-room and any other changes that you please."
"I remember it, I like the situation; there are English sparrows in the
trees."
"We will take that for the present. John Gesner owns it; he will make
his own price if he sees that I want it, I suppose. I _do_ want it.
There are not many things that I desire more. You and I will have a
green old age at Old Place."
"You forget that I am thirty years older than you, my son."
By accident, one day, Mrs. Towne had come across, in one of the drawers
of her son's writing-table, a large photograph of Tessa Wadsworth, a
vignette, and she had gazed long upon her; the face was not beautiful,
one would not even think of it as pretty, but it was fine, intellectual,
sensitive, and sweet. In searching for an old letter not long before
leaving home, she had discovered this picture, defaced and torn into
several pieces.
"Ralph, you will not be angry with your white-headed old mother, but
were you ever refused?"
"No," he said, laughing. "A dozen women may have been ready to refuse
me, but not one ever did."
"Nor accepted you, either," she continued, shrewdly.
He arose and began to pace the floor; after some turns of excited
movement, he came to her and stood behind her chair. "I know that I have
been accepted; I know that I asked when I did not intend to ask--that
is--I was carried beyond myself; I asked when I did not know that I was
asking."
"What shall you do now?"
"I shall ask in reality; I shall confess myself in the wrong."
"And she?"
"And she? She has the tenderest heart in the world. She has forgiven me
long ago."
"Do not trust her eyes and forget her lips," warned his mother. "Love is
slain sometimes."
He resumed his walk with a less confident air. He _had_ forgotten her
lips.
Would Tessa have cared to hear this? Would she have forgotten Felix, his
blessing and the quiet of the holy stars?
"Oh," cried Dinah, with her little shout (she would not have been Dinah
without that little shout), "Oh, Tessa, did you hear?"
"She is star-gazing," said Mr. Hammerton.
"It isn't a true story," pleaded Dinah. "You didn't really see him
hanging by the rope and the woman looking on."
"My young friend, it is an allegory; that is what you will drive some
man to some day."
"You know I won't. What is the name of that bright star?"
"It isn't a star, it's a planet."
"How do I know the difference?"
"Lady Blue knows."
"Do you call her that because her eyes are so blue or because she is a
blue-stocking?"
"She is not a blue-stocking; I will not allow it. It is for her eyes."
"Gus," said Dinah, "I can't understand things."
"What things?"
"Tennyson's Dream of Fair Women."
"I shouldn't think you could. I have spent hours on it trying to make it
out. You look up Marc Antony and Cleopatra--"
"As if I had to."
"Well, look up the daughter of the warrior Gileadite, and fair Rosamond,
and angered Eleanor, and Fulvia, and Joan of Arc."
"And will you read it to us, and talk all about it?" cried Dinah in
delight. "I like King Lear when father reads it, but I can't understand
Shakespeare; he is all conversations."
Mr. Hammerton laughed, and patted her head. "I will bring you the
stories that Charles and Mary Lamb gathered from Shakespeare."
"Shall we turn?" asked Tessa, slipping her hand through his arm; he
instantly imprisoned her fingers. Felix would be troubled and angry she
knew, even at this clasp of an old friend's hand. Jealousy was his one
strong passion; he was jealous of the books she read, of the letters she
received, of every word spoken to her that he did not hear; she wondered
as her fingers drew themselves free, if he would ever become jealous of
her prayers.
She drew a long breath as the weight of her bondage fell heavier and
heavier; and then, he was so demonstrative, so lavish of his caresses,
and her ideal of a lover was one who held himself aloof, who kept his
hands and his lips to himself. She sighed more than once as she kept
even pace with the others.
"Has the nightingale made a mistake?" asked Mr. Hammerton, as they were
crossing to the gate.
"She only made one mistake. I wonder how many I _can_ make if I do my
best to make them."
Dinah opened the gate; her father's light streamed through the windows
over the garden, down the path.
"Good night," said Mr. Hammerton. "Oh, I just remember, what shall I do?
I asked my cousin Mary to go to a lecture on Burns with me to-night, and
I declare! I never thought of it until this minute."
"Mary Sherwood will give it to you," said Dinah. "I wonder what your
wife will do with you."
"A wife's first duty is obedience," he answered.
"I'd like to see the man I'd promise to obey," said Dinah, quickly.
"I expect you would," he said gravely.
Dine darted after him to box his ears, words being impotent, and Tessa
went into the house. "I think I'll pigeon-hole _this_ day and then go to
bed," she said, a merry gleam crossing her eyes; "between my two walks
on the planks to-day, I have lived half a lifetime. I hope Dr. Lake is
asleep; I will never hurt Felix as he is hurt."