Dr Heidenhoffs Process | Page 4

He was afraid
that something might be said by Deacon Tuttle or Deacon Miller, who
were good men, but not very subtile in their spiritual insight, which
would still further alienate the unfortunate young man. His own
intention of finding opportunity for a little private talk with him after
the meeting was, however, disappointed by the promptness with which
Bayley left the room. He did not seem to notice the sympathetic faces
and out-stretched hands around him. There was a set smile on his face,
and his eyes seemed to look through people without seeing them. There
was a buzz of conversation as the people began to talk together of the
decided novelty in the line of conference-meeting exhortations to which

they had just listened. The tone of almost all was sympathetic, though
many were shocked and pained, and others declared that they did not
understand what he had meant. Many insisted that he must be a little
out of his head, calling attention to the fact that he looked so pale. None
of these good hearts were half so much offended by anything heretical
in the utterances of the young man as they were stirred with sympathy
for his evident discouragement. Mr. Lewis was perhaps the only one
who had received a very distinct impression of the line of thought
underlying his words, and he came walking down the aisle with his
head bent and a very grave face, not joining any of the groups which
were engaged in talk. Henry Burr was standing near the door, his hat in
his hand, watching Madeline out of the corners of his eyes, as she
closed the melodeon and adjusted her shawl.
"Good-evening, Henry," said Mr. Lewis, pausing beside the young man.
"Do you know whether anything unpleasant has happened to George
lately to account for what he said to-night?"
"I do not, sir," replied Henry.
"I had a fancy that he might have been slighted by some one, or given
the cold shoulder. He is very sensitive."
"I don't think any one in the village would slight him," said Henry.
"I should have said so too," remarked the minister, reflectively. "Poor
boy, poor boy! He seems to feel very badly, and it is hard to know how
to cheer him."
"Yes, sir----that is--certainly," replied Henry incoherently, for Madeline
was now coming down the aisle.
In his own preoccupation not noticing the young man's, Mr. Lewis
passed out.
As she approached the door Madeline was talking animatedly with
another young lady.

"Good-evening," said Henry.
"Poor fellow!" continued Madeline to her companion, "he seemed quite
hopeless."
"Good-evening," repeated Henry.
Looking around, she appeared to observe him for the first time.
"Good-evening," she said.
"May I escort you home?" he asked, becoming slightly red in the face.
She looked at him for a moment as if she could scarcely believe her
ears that such an audacious proposal had been made to her. Then she
said, with a bewitching smile--
"I shall be much obliged."
As he drew her arm beneath his own the contact diffused an ecstatic
sensation of security through his stalwart but tremulous limbs. He had
got her, and his tribulations were forgotten. For a while they walked
silently along the dark streets, both too much impressed by the tragic
suggestions of poor Bayley's outbreak to drop at once into trivialities.
For it must be understood that Madeline's little touch of coquetry had
been merely instinctive, a sort of unconscious reflex action of the
feminine nervous system, quite consistent with very lugubrious
engrossments.
To Henry there was something strangely sweet in sharing with her for
the first time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had
always before been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to
the first stages of courtships. This new experience appeared to dignify
their relation, and weave them together with a new strand. At length
she said--
"Why didn't you go after poor George and cheer him up instead of
going home with me? Anybody could have done that."

"No doubt," replied Henry, seriously; "but, if I'd left anybody else to do
it, I should have needed cheering up as much as George does."
"Dear me," she exclaimed, as a little smile, not exactly of vexation,
curved her lips under cover of the darkness, "you take a most
unwarrantable liberty in being jealous of me. I never gave you nor
anybody else any right to be, and I won't have it!"
"Very well. It shall be just as you say," he replied. The sarcastic
humility of his tone made her laugh in spite of herself, and she
immediately changed the subject, demanding--
"Where is Laura to-night?"
"She's at home, making cake for the picnic," he said.
"The good girl! and I ought to be making some, too.