A Phyllis of the Sierras | Page 8

"There; that's easy enough," she said,
and turned away.
"But--one moment, Miss--Miss--?"
"Macy," said louise.
"Where am I to put the shells?"
"Oh! throw them down there--there's room enough."
She was pointing to the canyon below. The veranda actually projected
over its brink, and seemed to hang in mid air above it. Mainwaring
almost mechanically threw his arm out to catch the incautious girl, who
had stepped heedlessly to its extreme edge.
"How odd! Don't you find it rather dangerous here?" he could not help
saying. "I mean--you might have had a railing that wouldn't intercept
the view and yet be safe?"
"It's a fancy of Mr. Bradley's," returned the young girl carelessly. "It's
all like this. The house was built on a ledge against the side of the
precipice, and the road suddenly drops down to it."
"It's tremendously pretty, all the same, you know," said the young man
thoughtfully, gazing, however, at the girl's rounded chin above him.
"Yes," she replied curtly. "But this isn't working. I must go back to
Jenny. You can shell the peas until Mr. Bradley comes home. He won't
be long."
She turned away, and re-entered the house. Without knowing why, he
thought her withdrawal abrupt, and he was again feeling his ready color
rise with the suspicion of either having been betrayed by the young
girl's innocent fearlessness into some unpardonable familiarity, which
she had quietly resented, or of feeling an ease and freedom in the
company of these two women that were inconsistent with respect, and

should be restrained.
He, however, began to apply himself to the task given to him with his
usual conscientiousness of duty, and presently acquired a certain
manual dexterity in the operation. It was "good fun" to throw the
cast-off husks into the mighty unfathomable void before him, and
watch them linger with suspended gravity in mid air for a
moment--apparently motionless--until they either lost themselves, a
mere vanishing black spot in the thin ether, or slid suddenly at a sharp
angle into unknown shadow. How deuced odd for him to be sitting here
in this fashion! It would be something to talk of hereafter, and yet,--he
stopped--it was not at all in the line of that characteristic adventure,
uncivilized novelty, and barbarous freedom which for the last month he
had sought and experienced. It was not at all like his meeting with the
grizzly last week while wandering in a lonely canyon; not a bit in the
line of his chance acquaintance with that notorious ruffian, Spanish
Jack, or his witnessing with his own eyes that actual lynching affair at
Angels. No! Nor was it at all characteristic, according to his previous
ideas of frontier rural seclusion--as for instance the Pike County cabin
of the family where he stayed one night, and where the handsome
daughter asked him what his Christian name was. No! These two young
women were very unlike her; they seemed really quite the equals of his
family and friends in England,--perhaps more attractive,--and yet, yes,
it was this very attractiveness that alarmed his inbred social
conservatism regarding women. With a man it was very different; that
alert, active, intelligent husband, instinct with the throbbing life of his
saw-mill, creator and worker in one, challenged his unqualified trust
and admiration.
He had become conscious for the last minute or two of thinking rapidly
and becoming feverishly excited; of breathing with greater difficulty,
and a renewed tendency to cough. The tendency increased until he
instinctively put aside the pan from his lap and half rose. But even that
slight exertion brought on an accession of coughing. He put his
handkerchief to his lips, partly to keep the sound from disturbing the
women in the kitchen, partly because of a certain significant taste in his
mouth which he unpleasantly remembered. When he removed the

handkerchief it was, as he expected, spotted with blood. He turned
quickly and re-entered the house softly, regaining the bedroom without
attracting attention. An increasing faintness here obliged him to lie
down on the bed until it should pass.
Everything was quiet. He hoped they would not discover his absence
from the veranda until he was better; it was deucedly awkward that he
should have had this attack just now--and after he had made so light of
his previous exertions. They would think him an effeminate fraud,
these two bright, active women and that alert, energetic man. A faint
color came into his cheek at the idea, and an uneasy sense that he had
been in some way foolishly imprudent about his health. Again, they
might be alarmed at missing him from the veranda; perhaps he had
better have remained there; perhaps he ought to tell them that he had
concluded to take their advice and lie down. He tried to rise,